alexis !

(You'd be lying if you said you didn't, but that doesn't make it any less overwhelming. It shouldn't be, but it is. If you ever thought fucking him might tucker him out, you were sorely mistaken— the energy boost he gets after putting you through the mattress makes no sense, but it's a fact of life with him. One moment he's on top of you, slippery chest weighing you down, and the next he's hopping out of bed to stretch his limbs and ask if you're hungry. 

When you first met, he called himself a monster. You've begun to think he was right about that. It's what kind of monster he is that he seems to have misunderstood.)

The door creaks, and a beautiful boy walks in, his quiet gaze catching yours across the room: a seamless kind of clicking together. Magnet eyes and magnet heartbeats. It responds when you catch sight of him, still disheveled, shoulders glistening with residues of sweat, but eyes bright and wide like a lion catching sight of a gizelle in the dark. Ba-dump, ba-dump. He's worn you down with his love, made your pulse his own. You can't look away from him. He's wearing nothing but boxer briefs and an old white shirt, no doubt the first article of clothing he saw when he dug through his closet— balancing a tray with three bowls placed atop of it, steam rising from the porcelain— a warm, hearty aroma wafting through the room. 

"I made you miso soup with rice," he calls out softly, the dimples on either side of his lips catching moonlight through the window curtains. Dreamy cerulean hues. "And eggs. I wanted you to have some proper protein, but we're all out of beef..."

"We already had dinner, Yuuta." 

"Huh? What's that got to do with anything?"

You squint at him. With thick blankets pooled atop your body and drawn up to your chin, it probably looks more comical than dubious. Your boyfriend tilts his head, clammy locks falling sideways. He doesn't look like he's even washed his face yet. 

"… Nevermind," you sigh. "I don't need beef, is what I mean. I'm not that hungry."

"You're always hungry after we have sex," he shakes his head. Smiling sweetly, taking brisk steps towards you. Heat blooms across your collarbones, lips curling into a frown, thoughts louder than your voice. No, you don't. "Or are you going to tell me you could just go to sleep like this?"

"I could." 

"Mhm." He downright giggles. Evil, evil man. Awful, charming man. He seats himself at your bedside, the tray kept steady on his lap, and leans forward to cup your cheek with the dip of his palm. When you give a pointed glare— mostly for show— his lips curl up like dragon flowers, threatening another bout of laughter. "You don't need anything, do you? Cutie."

"I-I don't," you protest. You've half the mind to shove at him, but your heart couldn't take that. You don't need anything, but there are some things you'd rather not go without. "You're acting like you broke my back. Literally. Cut it out."

He licks his lips absently. They're still rosy and swollen, a far cry from the chapped skin spring usually has him deal with, and his voice falls softer when they part. "… Well, you cried." 

"Okay. I'll kill you."

"Baby," he croons. "I'm not trying to embarrass you—"

"If anything," your voice grows sharp, "aren't you more wrecked than I am?"

Pointedly, you look him up and down. Purple hickeys sucked into his skin. Check. Imprints of teeth like a wreath around his neck, evidence of your hunger for the places where he's most tender and you feel his pulse the clearest— check. Scratch-marks on his back? Probably. You'll check up on them tomorrow morning. He'd never bother with the bruise cream otherwise.

Sheepish laughter clouds his words, peach-fuzz dusting his cheeks. One of his slender hands go to cup the root of his throat, feeling for the bite marks. Shameless. "It's not that bad… I like it, actually."

"Oh, I know. I just don't think you should be fussing over me when you're the one who looks like he got jumped by a raccoon." You cross your arms over your chest, ignoring the very much still present ache between your legs. If he notices their trembling, it's game over. He won't be able to stop himself from massaging your calves. "We had sex. That's all. It wasn't even that inte—"

"Say 'aah,' honey."

… Suddenly a spoon is poised in front of you, and your boyfriend is wearing an innocent smile. Unbothered by anything you've said so far. That's not surprising, only frustrating. More frustrating is the fact that his feeble distraction actually works. He's scooped up a mouthful of homemade miso soup, a square of tofu sitting pretty and waiting on the cutlery. Despite your insistance that you don't need anything from him right now, that you'll be just fine without the five star meal he was hoping to magically throw together in the span of fifteen minutes, your stomach growls at the promise in front of you— drool pooling under your tongue. It's a struggle not to duck under the covers when the sound makes him beam. As you reach for the spoon held between his fingers, he tuts and pulls away. 

Figures. Why did you even try?

"… Yuuta," you huff. "I can eat by myself."

"I know you can." He doesn't let go of it. Simply moves it back to where it was before you tried to turn the tables on a man this determined to spoil his partner, resting pointedly in front of your closed mouth. There's that look in his eye again: a hunter that just spotted its prey. Polished obsidian. Nothing you say or do will convince him to let you win this.

Reluctantly, your lips part. Curse your stomach. 

"Good job," he croons, watching you chew on the silken tofu. It's not spoken with condescension, which somehow makes it worse. He scoops up a bite of rice next, blowing on it quietly before feeding it to you. The warmth of the meal settles in your chest like a heated blanket, your hunger growing with each bite. Curse Yuuta Okkotsu. As you eat what he's made you, you feel yourself being moulded into someone more pliant, a shadow of you that only comes out on these long nights, sneaking into his bed and your body like a monster under the floorboards when you're too weary to resist. Before daybreak, after dusk. Yuuta loves that monster. He wants nothing more than to feed into it. To feel its teeth under his greedy fingertips.

He's gross. You're gross for wanting it. You're both rotten and perfect for each other. That’s not something you should feel happy about.

"… There you go, pretty baby." He carefully places the tray and empty bowls on your nightstand, next to a short pile of unread books, a bookmark he made you in high school, the glass of water you'd been drinking from before. There's still the slightest layer of water pooling at the bottom— your stubborn, feeble resistance— but when Yuuta notices he only gives you an indulgent smile. "Was it tasty?"

You manage a nod, allowing your body to melt into the mattress. Limp as a noodle, toasted from top to bottom. "Thanks for the meal," you call out with your eyes closed, drowsy, softer than before. Softer than you meant to. The bed creaks, a kiss planted between your brows; he smells faintly of vanilla and sex, traces of sage from the cologne he likes to spray on his neck in the mornings before hectic work days. It's a scent that makes you feel at ease. He dips his head down to give a peck at your lips next, chaste and sugary, locks of his hair tickling the pulse-pocket at the base of your throat. 

"You're welcome." He smiles against your skin. "Should we freshen up? Or do you want to sleep?"

"Sleep," you rasp. "I have work tomorrow."

… At that, a low, thoughtful noise coils in his throat. You can almost feel his Adam's apple bob under its vibrations. For a moment, all is quiet.

Then he whispers: ”Alright. Sleep it is."

Your body is still slick with sweat and fluids, but that doesn't bother you right now. You can take a shower in the morning without falling behind your schedule. Yuuta's compliance is suspicious, but you try not to pay it any mind. The ache is still there, but its begun to be dulled by the warmth of the meal and insistent tugs at your consciousness, pillowed under the weight of your exhaustion. It's only a matter of time before it overtakes you. Yuuta lowers the window-blinds before he slips beneath the covers, tangling your limbs together: exhaling a breath of relief, like this was the only thing missing. His leg under yours, his arm curled comfortably around your midriff. Tethered together like Tanabata-wishes on worn branches. He gives small, wet kisses to the apple of your cheek, knowing you're too fatigued to grumble about it.

"How are you feeling?" he whispers. "Sore?"

"… Just a little."

A soft, knowing sound. "Sorry. I missed you today, so I might have gotten carried away."

For a second, you think you'll laugh. This is what makes him so lethal. He doesn't realize what his voice does to you when it sounds like that, when it's saying things like that—

Your heart threads itself into a knot. Knocks against your trembling ribs. For a moment, being peeled open doesn't frighten you. 

(For a moment, you think you'd let him unravel you however he likes, for however long he likes.

Just a moment; nothing more. If he weren’t kind, and didn’t love you, it would mean the end of you.)

"I'll massage your hips," he promises. Nosing at a tender spot below your jaw, a hound sniffing for buried weaponry. Surely, he should already feel satisfied. He got to break you open and stitch you back together again. Make love to you until your throat felt too rigid to make sound with, soundless tears dribbling down your cheeks, on your pillowcase, into his mouth. Your Yuuta is greedy. He's the greediest. That's the only reason you feel comfortable being greedy back. "Tomorrow. Or right now. You can sleep, I'll handle everything."

"I can handle myself," you protest, slurring your words. An ocean wave of slumber laps at your shaky legs, wades over your body, threatening to swallow you under. But you aren't afraid.

"I know you can." 

Quiet breaths. Mingling pulses. Outside the walls of your apartment, unbeknownst to either one of you, the crescent moon succumbs to slivers of creaking dawn.

A kiss at your pulsepoint. It flutters beneath.

"I just don't think you should have to."

…

With what little remains of your willpower, you stifle a yawn, reaching over to wrap your arms around his neck. He's all too eager to make space for you. His body used to be eerily scrawny, but now there's more muscle mass to it. Enough for you to feel underneath the fabric, thrumming faintly, like a steady reminder of how strong he can be. How gentle he chooses to be. 

There's no need to have your guard up. You know that's what he's saying, near constantly, without opening his mouth. You can close your eyes around me.

So you do.

"Yuuta," you call.

"Mhm?"

"You didn't eat anything."

Faintly, he chuckles. You can picture his smile in the dark of the room. As if your concern alone could fill his stomach, or soothe the ache in his lower abdomen. "I'm okay, baby. I'll eat something tomorrow."

"Promise?"

"… Yeah," he sighs. Wrapping you into him, pressed taut against his ribs, like even that isn't as close as he'd like you to be. If you fell asleep right now, you'd dream of it; dream a bird's dream, sitting pretty on a bone-white branch, next to a heart too big for his body. "I promise."

Yuuta is nothing if not meticulous. He's never broken a promise he made you. Intertwined pinkies mean more to him than written contracts.

So you believe him.

(His love is insurance. Reassurance. You fall asleep with it around you, inside of you; a quiet, mutual love. The trust that comes with it.

Tomorrow, you'll wake up past your bedtime, too late to catch your shift. The morning alarm you have set to ring isn't on: Yuuta's doing. Your compliance. You know you're losing one way or another, and he knows you'll let him win.

Now, now… you might have held it in like the prim and proper princess you were, had this not been the fifth time this week your husband had left you behind in favor of his royal duties. Not even your adorable son was spared by them.

“How is our little prince?” he had asked over dinner the week before, right after returning from Dragonstone. His nameday celebration had been fast approaching, and there had been much to see to if the feasts were to be worthy of him.

“He’s well. Growing far too quickly, I think,” you answered, a pleased smile gracing your lips as you thought to invite him to see the child. “Would you—”

Valarr had only nodded, already moving on. “Good, good… I’ll visit him when I can.”

When I can.

And the other time—

“You should rest,” he had told you one evening, already halfway through shrugging off his cloak. “Don’t wait for me, love. There are matters I must tend to first.”

“And it must be done tonight?” you asked, blinking.

Valarr had only smiled, drawing you close just long enough to press a kiss to your forehead.

Always the forehead, you had noticed. Lately.

“I’m afraid so, love.”

By the time you had turned back, he had already reached for a parchment, his attention drifting elsewhere entirely, leaving you a wife longing for her husband’s touch.

You knew well enough that you couldn’t fault the realm for keeping him busy, but one thing that made you felt this sense of indignation was how Valarr didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

You knew it was petty.

You knew it even as the thought first took root, as you sat alone in chamber that felt far too large without him. A wiser woman or a better princess might have continued to wait patiently until he found his way back to you.

…but you were not feeling particularly wise, at this moment.

So be it, you thought, chin lifting ever so slightly.

If the realm demanded him so thoroughly, then you would simply let it have him.

And you would make yourself just as occupied.

Your husband’s upcoming nameday celebration would give you the perfect excuse. It was, after all, an occasion that demanded grandeur, careful planning, and a hundred little details that needed tending if it were to be worthy of the heir to the crown prince. Who better than his own wife to see to it?

So you immersed yourself in it entirely… and in doing so, you spared him just as little attention as he had given you.

“Where is my wife?”

Having an adoring wife who sought his attention was, of course, a delight for Valarr. You were his sun and stars, and while he hadn’t done a good job showing it lately and it disheartened him to be away from you for many things he had to handle, the fact remained the same.

Yet, even he could not deny that there was a part of him that wondered how long you could endure, starved of him. There was something quietly gratifying in it— how he alone held that power, that he was the only one who could draw such yearning from you.

In the end, reason had won out as it always did though. He could not bear the idea of you growing distant and wilting quietly while he did nothing to stop it.

And so he went looking for you... only to find the castle already moving at your command:

“My prince, Her Grace is in the kitchens, seeing to the arrangements for your nameday feast.”

“In the gardens, Your Grace. She is overseeing the flowers for display.”

“With the tailors, my prince. Her Grace is directing the final adjustments for His Grace Prince Baelor’s attire for the occasion.”

Each answer placed you somewhere just beyond his reach, and if he didn’t know better, Valarr almost suspected you avoiding him on purpose.

The banquet hall was lavish. Not a single flower wilted in its arrangement, the refreshments pleased every palate, the decorations were on point, their colors chosen with such care that nothing clashed, and everyone was enjoying themselves.

And at the center of it all, was you, the princess consort.

Though this was the Young Prince’s nameday, it was you who had taken the spotlight for having the meticulous eye to arrange all the finery. Now you were in an amicable conversation with Lord Hightower, every bit as stunning in a crimson and black dress befitting a Targaryen princess.

Pride swelled in Valarr’s chest, of course. How could he not? You were his wife. Every whispered compliment belonged, in some way, to him as well.

…but at the same time, this was also becoming absurd. For days already, and throughout all evening, he hadn’t even exchanged so much as a single word with you.

All the while, you stood there, basking in the attention of another man.

“Your wife has quite the gift.”

The Hand of the King and his sire, Prince Baelor, hummed in satisfaction at your craft this evening. He observed the silk that cascaded down the high beams, nodding in approval.

Valarr exhaled slowly through his nose, his fingers tightening around his goblet before sipping it.

“So it would seem.”

“She does us proud tonight. The court has not stopped singing her praises.” Baelor tilted his head, smiling. “I daresay they’ve nearly forgotten whose nameday this is.”

From Lord Hightower, you flitted to Lord Arryn and Lord Greyjoy, both of whom, to Valarr at least, watching you as if they were undressing you with their very eyes.

“…Yes. Indeed.”

Baelor’s brow arched at once, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. It did not take a maester’s wit to see what lay beneath his son’s composed exterior. Though many may regard him a worthy successor to him, of course he knew that his son had a temper of his own.

“It seems,” he started, voice laced with quiet humor, “having a celebrated wife comes with its… inconveniences.”

Valarr’s lips pressed into a thin line.

“Take heart,” the crown prince continued, leaning back in his seat, thoroughly entertained now. “At least you can boast that the realm admires her.”

I would rather she remembered her husband exists, Valarr replied in his mind, but he knew that he had a facade to maintain, and continue to sip his drink in response.

Soon, the shuffle of footsteps approached, drawing Valarr’s attention. The wet nurse bowed her head respectfully, cradling a small, squirming bundle in her arms.

“Your Grace, the little prince is growing restless...”

“Bring him here.” At once, Valarr’s expression brightened as he reached out for the babe and placed him on his knee.

His son—dubbed the Little Prince—blinked up at him with his doe blue and brown eyes, before breaking into a wide, dimpled smile, his round cheeks flushed and eyes bright with curiosity.

The court might have its shining jewel in you tonight, but Valarr knew this little creature was just as dangerous in stealing hearts.

“There you are.” Valarr adjusted his hold as the babe grasped at his doublet. His voice softened, a trace of humor crept into it as he glanced towards where you still stood across the hall.

“Do you see her?” he nudged the child. “Your lady mother, in all her glory.”

His boy gurgled, dimples deepening.

“Yes, yes… she’s very impressive, isn’t she? So impressive, in fact, that she has quite forgotten the two men she is meant to dote upon tonight.”

The babe responded with another delighted sound, entirely unconcerned with his father’s plight.

“Mm. Laugh while you can.” Valarr eyed his son with mock severity. “You are just as abandoned as I am.”

Prince Baelor watched his son and grandson with unblinking eyes, only able to shake his head in the end.

“There you are, my sweet boy!”

Oh, but he was wrong. You had not abandoned your darling son at all.

You cooed, gathering your baby close as you pressed a soft kiss to his plump cheek. “Did you miss me? Hmm? Oh, I think you did.”

The boy answered with a giggle, tiny fingers curling against the fabric of your dress as though he meant to keep you there forever.

Valarr couldn’t believe the sight before him. The feast had ended, and this was meant to be his long-awaited chance to have you to himself at last— and yet here you were, utterly taken with his son instead.

Granted, he was an adorable babe, but still!

You kept pecking his little face with kisses, and then Valarr appeared at your side. You barely had time to look up before he reached for the child, lifting him from your arms with practiced ease, surprising you.

The Little Prince fussed only for a heartbeat before settling, and Valarr turned, passing him back into the waiting arms of the wet nurse.

“Take him,” he commanded. “He has had enough excitement for one evening.”

The wet nurse dipped her head and withdrew without question, leaving the two of you alone at last.

You turned back just in time to find yourself steered towards your marital bed. A soft gasp barely left your lips as his hand caught your arm, and in the next breath, you were pulled forward, tumbling down onto the mattress— right atop him.

“Valarr— oh!”

Your protests never quite formed. He was already kissing you furiously.

There was a hunger in his kiss, something long held at bay finally given to surface. His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, the other over your waist, pressing you closer, as though to make up for every moment he had been kept from you that night.

At last, he could touch you.

Only when he pulled away did the breath return to you both. His forehead hovered near yours, his warmth unmistakable, a faint flush coloring his features.

“…There,” he murmured softly, his mismatched eyes crinkling, as though something within him had eased at last. “That is better.”

Your lashes fluttered and lips pursed as your hands came to rest against his chest. Your earlier composure had melted away, leaving a bashful warmth in its place beneath his gaze.

Valarr watched you, a sweet, winning smile on his lips.

“Have I been so thoroughly replaced by those well-dressed lords? What am I to do? I have missed you, beloved.”

You stilled briefly in his hold, your lips puckering more.

“Really?” you mused, feeling whimsical now that the tables had turned. “It doesn’t seem so.”

His eyes twinkled, narrowing ever so slightly.

“Then I should simply show you better.”

His lips found yours again, and this time he was the one being whimsical— a playful nip at your lower lip before he drew back just enough to trail softer kisses along your cheek, down the line of your jaw, and to the curve of your neck. His breath brushed warm against your skin as he lingered there, savoring the softness of your skin.

A hitched gasp escaped your lips when he nipped your nape, and that got him to grin, finally stopping to look at you once again.

You made a face, still catching your breath. “How long has it been since we last shared a bed? Eight days—”

“Nine,” he corrected, giving you a little look that you mirrored back. “Nine days since I have strayed from our marital bed… and yet you have not once come looking for me.”

You huffed, though the sound lacked any real bite. Your hand reached out to his face, getting a feel of it. Valarr stilled.

You traced his features— along the sharp line of his jaw, over his plush lips, and across the freckles adorning his face. Your thumb then grazed just beneath his right eye, lingering there… before your hand settled more firmly, cupping his face, grabbing it more than necessary just because.

“…I missed this,” you murmured, almost to yourself, meeting his gaze and drawn by the mesmerizing two colors of them. “You have beautiful eyes.”

“They are... blue and brown,” he replied, and you felt him tensing slightly.

You had always known even when he rarely spoke of it. Your husband could be self-conscious about his eyes. It was not without reason—Prince Baelor himself had once endured mockery for the very same Dornish features, and such things had a way of lingering longer than they should.

“That is what makes them beautiful,” you whispered.

“Aerion used to say they are weird.”

Your face soured immediately. “Fuck Aerion.”

The bluntness of it was so immediate that Valarr laughed outright. “His lady wife does that, dear.”

Whenever you thought of the poor lady Prince Maekar had wed him to, you felt sorry for her. Lady Lannister was known for her impeccable decorum and pride, but surely she went through many trials and tribulations to be with the Brightfire.

“I pity her. She must have the patience of a septa...”

Valarr’s laughter softened, his gaze returning to you with renewed fondness, his hand coming up to rest over yours. “And you do not pity me, whom you have not so much as graced with your attention all evening?”

You mischievously blinked. “Have I not been showering you with attention just now, dear husband?”

“Hardly enough to compensate for the damage you have done.”

“Is that so? I recall someone being quite occupied with his princely duties and being content enough as it was.”

“Content? I was being neglected.”

“You had half the court at your table.”

“And none of them were my wife.”

You were about to counter with something witty when, in a single, fluid motion, Valarr’s hand slipped from your face to your waist, and he turned you over. The world tilted beneath you, a soft gasp catching in your throat as your back met the bed—only for him to follow, straddling you.

“My wife is far too captivating for her own good… and entirely too unaware of how radiant she is.” Valarr’s thumb brushed lightly along the corners of your lips.

Something in his eyes looked melancholic, however.

“I wonder... should I get you with another child?”

He loathed seeing you in childbed, yet he couldn’t deny the way you seemed to glow carrying his child, nor the pride it stirred in him— a living mark that you were his princess consort of the Seven Kingdoms.

Your heart felt warm, because even now, after all this time, it had always been you he chose.

“If that is what my prince wishes…” Your lashes fluttering as you looked up at him, a knowing smile playing at your lips. “I shall provide.”

“What a wanton...” His eyes twinkled, his smile both taunting and gentle all at once. “I refuse to share you with anyone else.”

“Well,” you whispered, clinging to his neck. “you needn’t.”

And when he kissed you this time, there was only warmth. His devotion to you was ever steadfast and true, and it was not something he had to declare when he showed it so effortlessly in the way he worshipped your body.

When you were reduced into a mess of sighs and tears, the twisting coil in your belly unfurl and snap entirely after receiving everything he had to give, holding him like your lifeline you did. He caught you, engulfing you in his warmest embrace, making sure you knew that you were truly, deeply loved. You could only think of him as your safest place—the one person in this world who would never let you fall.

Your sweet husband, Prince Valarr Targaryen, was devastatingly in love... and when another child came, born not of duty, but of a devotion so deep—

ryland didn’t even look up it. “option one: we open it and potentially discover advanced human knowledge. option two: we don’t open it and i slowly lose my mind wondering what’s inside.”

“option three,” you added, “we don’t open it and you will forever be curious about the content but hey, at least you'd still be alive!”

he glanced up at you with a grin that immediately told you he was not going to pick option three.

you pushed off the console, already exasperated. “ryland last time you said ‘this’ll probably be fine,’ we almost suffocated.”

“counterpoint,” he said, straightening and placing a hand on the latch, “almost.”

you sighed.

“i just don’t like it,” you said for what was probably the fifth time.

ryland made a thoughtful humming sound that meant the exact opposite.

“you don’t like anything that comes from rocky.”

you crossed your arms without taking your eyes off the object. “that is objectively untrue. i like the parts that don’t explode, corrode, or attempt to rewrite the laws of physics.”

“so…. none of it?”

“exactly.”

pause.

just when ryland reached for the cylinder, you spoke out again.

“and just for the record….” you said, voice flat, “i am deeply against whatever you’re about to do.”

“come on. what’s the worst that could happen?”

you dragged a hand down your face, already bracing for disaster. “okay, i need you to understand that that phrase is cursed. like, historically cursed. civilizations have fallen after someone said that.”

he ignored you.

of course he ignored you.

the seal popped before you could argue more. the cylinder hissed open with a soft, pressurized sound.

for a second, nothing happened.

you leaned forward slightly, squinting, peering into the opening, expecting… something. a device. a sample. anything.

“okay.… maybe it’s empty—”

poof!

a burst of fine gold dust shot out of the container in slow motion, catching the light as it drifted upward and outward, directly into both your faces before either of you could react.

“oh— come on—!” you coughed immediately, stumbling back and waving your hands uselessly through the air. “why is it always airborne—”

“i didn’t—” ryland coughed too, turning his head and blinking rapidly. “i didn’t know it was going to do that!”

“it’s a mysterious alien container, of course it was going to do that!”

the dust settled almost as quickly as it appeared, vanishing into nothing. no residue, no smell, no visible trace that anything had even happened.

you both stood there, breathing hard, staring at each other.

“….okay,” you said slowly. “status report.”

he blinked a few more times, then patted his arms, his torso, like he might find damage. “uhhh…. lungs: functioning. skin: not melting. vision: normal.”

“define normal.”

“i can see you glaring at me, so, yeah. normal.”

you exhaled. “great. fantastic. we inhaled space dust and survived. love that for us.”

“see?” he said, already relaxing. “nothing to worry about.”

you pointed at him sharply. “you do not get to say that. you lost that privilege the moment you opened it.”

“fair.”

then there was a beat.

“so…. that’s it?” you asked.

he peered into the cylinder, turning it upside down. only the residue of the dust fell, nothing else was inside.

“that’s it.” he confirmed.

“….okay,” you said finally, though your voice carried a thin edge of disbelief. “either that was completely harmless, or we just inhaled something that’s going to kill us slowly and mysteriously.”

“statistically,” ryland said, already turning back toward the console, “it’s probably the second one.”

“great,” you muttered. “love that for us.”

“yep.” he clicked his tongue and made a double finger gun. “nailed it.”

only for a while.

only for a while, it actually seemed like he was right.

you two ran scans, double-checked the air composition, monitored your vitals like you were waiting for them to spike into something dramatic and undeniable. everything came back normal. no toxins, no foreign pathogens, no radiation spikes, nothing that explained the golden dust or what it was supposed to do.

it should have been reassuring.

it wasn’t.

because about an hour in, you noticed something off.

not dramatic. not alarming. but subtle enough.

you shifted in your seat, tugging slightly at the collar of your yellow jumpsuit. the fabric suddenly felt too close, too warm against your skin.

“hey,” you said, not looking up from your screen. you were in your station in the lab, your back facing ryland. “did the temperature go up?”

ryland glanced at the panel beside him. “nope. holding steady.”

“huh.” you leaned back, frowning. “feels warmer.”

“maybe you’re just stressed.”

you snorted. “yeah, because inhaling unknown alien particles was such a relaxing experience.”

you tried to ignore it.

it didn’t work.

because by the second hour, it got worse. worse enough that it distracted you from doing your job. and the off feeling didn’t go away. it deepened.

you were restless now, shifting every few minutes, hyper-aware of your own body in a way that was getting increasingly distracting.

“okay, nope. something’s happening.” you said, standing up. you zipped down your suit. it pooled around your waist and left you in nothing but a dark green tank top you wore underneath. now you looked like a formula 1 driver walking around the garage in the middle of a malaysian heat.

except you were pretty sure that the heat in malaysia was tolerable and the drivers were used to it.

this, whatever this was however, was far from it.

“i'm sure it's nothing—” ryland finally turned but then paused.

“what?” you asked as you tied your hair into a ponytail.

he was sitting still. too still. his posture was stiff, shoulders slightly tense, like he was holding himself in place. his jaw tightened and his eyes that were currently fixated on you slightly dilated.

“....ryland?”

he flinched, snapping back to the present. he fixed his glasses while his eyes withdrew, focusing on somewhere else but you.

“yeah?” his voice came out a little too quick. a little too tight.

you narrowed your eyes. “you okay?”

“fine. totally fine.”

“….you don’t look fine.”

he let out a short laugh that didn’t sound entirely natural. “well, looks can be deceiving.”

“you’re flushed.”

“it’s warm,” he said immediately. “i’m…. internally warm.”

“....that’s not a thing.”

“it is now.”

you crossed your arms, studying him.

“you’re acting weird.”

ryland scratched the back of his neck. you did not miss the way he licked his lips. and there was a faint flush creeping across his face, coloring his cheeks and the tips of his ears, subtle but unmistakable once you saw it.

“nothing. nothing. um—”

you frowned. “are you okay?”

“yes, yes,” he cleared his throat while still staring at a very specific spot on the floor, like he was avoiding your eyes.

“okay….” you turned, walking back to your station, trying to not let his sudden weird behaviour get to you. it's ryland. he was always a bit odd, even back on earth when you first met him on the ship.

by hour three, thankfully you finished your work quickly because the heat was no longer tolerable.

“fuck….” you muttered under your breath, standing up and started pacing around.

ryland was still busy with his duct-taped-computers, probably working on the algorithm to translate rocky's melodic language.

he stopped typing on the keyboard and grabbed his notebook, writing something there now.

your paces halted. and unfortunately your brain decided that right now was the perfect time to let your eyes wander to his arms out of all places.

you didn’t know why but it just happened.

you didn't get to stop yourself. you brain drifted, catching on the absolute ridiculous size of his biceps. since when did he work out? the thought of middle school science teacher ryland grace going to the gym and working out during the weekends got more ridiculous the more you think of it.

you should have stopped. should have sat back down and worked or went to take a nap or— oh my god his veins—

you flinched.

jesus, what the fuck?

since when the fuck did you notice that?

nope. absolutely not.

you squeezed your eyes shut briefly, exhaling through your nose like that might reset your brain.

it didn't.

you sighed, audible enough just to your ears. your gaze flicked, just for a second, and then immediately snapped back to somewhere else.

that was a mistake.

because now you knew, and knowing made it harder not to look again.

your brain, completely unhelpful, decided to supply additional commentary. since when does he have arms like that? it asked, again, like this was new information, like you hadn’t been working side by side with him for months.

you squeezed your eyes shut briefly, exhaling through your nose. get it together. this was ryland. your crew mate. your friend. the only other human being alive within literal light-years.

and yet—

“…oh, for fuck's sake,” you cursed under your breath.

“what?” ryland immediately turned, ears sharp enough to hear you. he looked concerned for a bit.

“nothing,” you said quickly. too quickly.

he adjusted his glasses. “that did not sound like nothing.”

“it’s nothing.”

ryland tilted his head. a hint of amusement decorating his face.

“you were staring at me,” he pointed out.

you jerked your gaze away. “i was not.”

“you absolutely were.”

“i was not,” you insisted sharper, which would have been more convincing if you hadn’t immediately glanced back at him again.

he let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “wow. okay. so it’s not just me. good to know.”

you pressed a hand to your forehead, giving up on your pretenses. “no, it is definitely not just you.”

you paced again a few more steps, trying to shake it off, but it didn’t help. if anything, it made you even more hyperaware of everything. your breathing, the air, him.

and by the fourth hour, denial was no longer an option.

“okay, that's it.” you said, pacing now because sitting still felt impossible, “we need to figure out whatever the hell this is.”

“yep,” ryland said, standing up simultaneously.

“define what you’re feeling,” you asked.

he hesitated. “uh, okay. so, scientifically?”

“obviously.”

“i feel…. distracted,” he started, frowning slightly as he tried to articulate it. “like my brain keeps…. derailing. and also—” he stopped.

he looked at you and held his gaze for a second too long.

“ryland.”

“.…also very aware of you,” he finished.

pause.

“define 'aware'. like when you were staring at me?”

“i wasn't—” he stopped, then frowned, like he was trying to catch his own thoughts mid-escape. “....okay, maybe i was.”

you crossed your arms. “why?”

“i don’t know,” he said immediately, which somehow felt worse than any actual answer. “i just— looked up and— there you were.”

“i’m always here!”

“yes,” he said, a little too quickly. “i am aware of that. conceptually. but right now it’s…. more noticeable.”

you stared at him.

“more noticeable.” you repeated.

he rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. “that sounded weird.”

“it sounded very weird.”

“i meant it in a normal, non-weird way!”

“there is no version of that sentence that is normal, ryland!”

“you were staring at me too!” he reminded.

you opened your mouth, then shut it again, abandoning whatever argument you were about to attempt. he got you there.

then you sighed. you realized that you both seem to be doing that a lot today.

“you know what? nevermind. just— are there any other symptoms? like what, hormones? perception? impulse control?”

“all of the above, probably.”

you exhaled slowly, forcing yourself to think. maybe it was—

“....the dust,” you said suddenly, stopping in your tracks.

he went still. “what?”

you pointed at the cylinder. “it has to be that.”

“yeah,” he said, nodding slowly like he just pieced all the puzzles together now. “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. mysterious alien substance, unknown effects, sudden onset of—” he gestured vaguely between you “—this.”

you raised an eyebrow. “'this?'”

“i don’t have a better word!”

“well, find one!”

“i’m a scientist, not emily bronte!”

you dragged both hands down your face. “oh my god.”

“okay,” you continued. “let's not panic. let us all calm down…. so, we agreed we got exposed to an unknown particulate substance.”

“yep.”

“we’re experiencing…. thermal dysregulation.”

“yep.”

“and—” you hesitated, “—behavioral anomalies.”

he made a small, distressed noise. “that is a very scientific way to say that i cannot stop staring at your lips.”

you frowned. “you were staring at my lips?”

“and you were staring at my arms! we can do this all day.” he said defensively.

“did you just quote the sequels— nevermind. not important.”

you pressed your lips together. which, unfortunately, made his eyes drop there again.

you both noticed, and you both looked away at the same time.

“….okay,” he said, pacing once, like movement might fix this. “okay, okay, okay, okay, we can figure this out. we always figure things out.”

“right,” you said, latching onto that. “we analyze.”

“we observe.”

“we hypothesize.”

“we do not panic.”

“we are absolutely not panicking.”

you were both very clearly panicking.

“let’s list everything again.” he said, forcing steadiness into his voice. “all symptoms. no judgment.”

“no judgment,” you agreed.

“elevated body temperature.” he started.

“check.”

“heightened sensory awareness.”

“check.”

“uh.…” he hesitated, visibly struggling. “increased…. focus on.… specific.… features?”

you folded your arms tighter. “check.”

“compulsive attention,” he added weakly.

“check.”

he swallowed. “and a— a noticeable shift in, uh—”

“attraction?” you said bluntly.

he closed his eyes. “yeah. that.”

the word hung there.

too heavy.

too accurate.

you both went very still. because once it was said like that, clean, clinical, undeniable, something in your brain clicked into place.

not just the symptoms.

the pattern.

your mind started pulling threads together, faster now. the dust. the delivery method. the lack of any visible organism. the immediate onset being minimal, then escalating over time.

you frowned, thinking harder.

“okay,” you said slowly. “if this were any known terrestrial system, particulate exposure with delayed onset behavioral changes would suggest—”

“toxins,” he said automatically.

“but there’s no impairment,” you countered.

“cognitive function is intact. motor function is intact. we’re not disoriented.”

“right,” he said, catching up. “so not a neurotoxin.”

“and not a pathogen,” you added. “no immune response. no inflammation.”

“so it’s not attacking us.”

“it’s.… affecting us.”

you both went quiet again, thinking.

he ran a hand through his hair, pacing again, faster this time. “okay, so— delivery system: aerosolized particulate. effect: behavioral modification. targeted toward—”

he stopped.

you watched it happen. the exact moment the realization hit him.

his entire posture went rigid.

“.…no,” he said.

your stomach dropped. “what?” you asked, even though something in you already knew but refused to acknowledge it.

he looked at you. then away. then back again, like he wished reality would swap out for a better option.

“no, no, no, no, no, no,” he muttered, shaking his head. “that’s— that’s not—”

“ryland,” you said, sharper now. “what.”

he gestured helplessly toward the empty cylinder. “there were no organisms. no plant matter. nothing visible. which means whatever this is, it doesn’t rely on traditional biological structures.”

“okay….?”

“which means,” he continued, words picking up speed like he couldn’t stop them now, “it could be a synthetic analog. or an alien biochemical system that doesn’t follow earth-based taxonomy. something that mimics a known function without the same physical form—”

“ryland.”

he stopped and looked at you.

you held his gaze.

“….say it,” you said quietly.

he hesitated. like if he didn’t say it, it wouldn’t be real.

“....on earth,” he started, carefully, “there are airborne particulates that influence behavior in very specific ways.”

your chest tightened.

“they’re typically produced by plants,” he went on. “released into the air. inhaled. they trigger physiological responses that.… alter attraction. increase reproductive drive. reduce inhibition—”

your breath caught.

he exhaled, defeated.

“....pollen,” he finished.

silence.

thick.

absolute.

you stared at him.

he stared back.

“that’s not possible,” you said, even as your brain was already connecting it. "that's not fucking possible. what the fu—”

“i know,” he said quickly. “i know. there were no plants. there’s no visible biological structure. it doesn’t make sense.”

“so it’s not pollen.”

“it’s not plant pollen,” he corrected weakly.

you both paused.

“….but it’s doing the same thing,” you said.

“.…yeah.”

another silence. longer this time.

he let out a hollow laugh, dragging a hand down his face. “that’s— wow. okay. that’s just— fantastic. amazing. incredible. we got hit with alien…. pseudo-pollen that—”

he stopped himself.

you finished it for him. “that makes people…. like this.”

he nodded, looking like he wanted to walk directly into space.

you swallowed. your skin still felt too warm. thoughts still kept drifting back to him.

to his hands. arms. the way he was looking at you right now.

you dropped your hands. wanna know the worst part of this? it's that now that you understood it, it didn’t make it stop. it just made it clearer.

“.…we’re in trouble,” you said quietly.

he nodded, equally quiet.

“yeah,” he said. “we really are.”

“and rocky just gave it to us with no warning?”

“to be fair,” ryland said, “he might not have known humans would react like this.”

you stopped pacing. “react like what, exactly?”

“....like this,” he said weakly. “he probably thinks this is how humans reproduce. like, 'here, have some breeding dust, make more crew for the mission!'” ryland continued.

“oh, jesus fucking tap-dancing christ.”

another pause.

longer this time.

he shifted his weight. “okay. solution-oriented thinking. we just… wait it out.”

“wait it out,” you repeated.

“yep. it’s a chemical thing, right? it’ll metabolize, wear off, we go back to normal, and we never speak of this again.”

“never,” you agreed quickly.

“not even a little bit.”

“not even in a funny anecdote way.”

“especially not in a funny anecdote way.”

he removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut tight while his other hand was gripping the edge of his desk for dear life. firm, almost rigid, like it was the only thing anchoring him in place. “good plan. great plan. love that plan.”

you stopped pacing and looked at him properly.

really looked.

the flush hadn’t faded, it had deepened. his breathing was just slightly off, not enough to be obvious unless you were paying attention, but you were paying attention now. and the way he was holding himself. tense, contained, like he was actively stopping himself from—

“....ryland,” you said slowly.

“yeah.” he did not look at you.

“....why are you holding onto the table like it’s about to float away?”

he let out a short, strained laugh.

“because if i don’t,” he said, voice tight in a way that made something in your chest twist, “i might do something incredibly stupid.”

your stomach dropped. “define 'stupid.'”

his eyes flicked up to yours, and whatever you saw there made your breath catch.

“i think,” he said quietly, “you already know.”

pause.

you stole a look at him. ryland had gone very still, hands braced on the edge of the console, head bowed like he was trying to think his way out of this. he looked just as wrecked as you are. tense, flushed, jaw tight like he was grinding through it.

the lab suddenly felt too small, like the walls had inched closer, like the air had thickened into something you had to push through just to breathe. you were still standing too close to each other. close enough to feel the heat rolling off him. close enough that every tiny shift felt amplified. and neither of you seemed able to take that one simple step back.

you both pretended to think. which would’ve been easier if your thoughts weren’t constantly derailing.

“okay,” ryland said finally, too quickly, like he’d been holding the word in his mouth for a while. he wasn’t looking at you. he hadn’t been looking at you for a solid minute now, which somehow made it worse. “solution. we need a solution.”

you nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “yeah. yeah, obviously.”

he paced once, twice, hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. “we don’t know the duration of the effect. could be hours, could be longer.”

“right,” you said, your voice coming out tighter than you meant.

“it might not get worse,” he said quickly.

you both paused.

“....it’s definitely getting worse,” you said.

“yeah,” he admitted. “yeah, that’s fair.”

another stretch of silence followed, thick and charged and deeply unhelpful.

another beat. he stopped mid-pace, suddenly locking eyes on your lips again as you bit the lower one in concentration. a visible shiver ran through him.

you, meanwhile, were transfixed by the way his t-shirt stretched across his chest when he breathed. arms. shoulders. that stupid little strand of hair falling over his forehead.

it was ridiculous. you were both adults. professionals. stuck on a ship light-years from home with an entire species depending on you not screwing this up.

and yet.

both of you looked away at the same time.

he continued pacing, then he straightened slightly, like he’d latched onto something solid. “okay. i’ve got it.”

you perked up. “yeah?”

“isolation.”

silence.

“what?” your voice came out small.

“we isolate,” he repeated, more firmly now, like saying it again would make it more reasonable. “separate areas of the ship. minimal contact. we wait for the effects to wear off.”

you stared at him. “you’re kidding.”

“i’m not kidding.”

“ryland, that’s not a solution. t-that’s— what if it gets worse? what if it doesn’t wear off?”

“then we reassess,” he said, easy. “but right now, the safest option is distance.”

you laughed, sharp and disbelieving. “distance? on this ship? we share literally everything. systems, controls, workload—”

“yeah,” he said, gaining momentum, talking faster now. “we separate. different sections of the ship. minimal contact. we only communicate over comms when absolutely necessary. reduce exposure to… stimuli.”

“stimuli,” you repeated flatly.

he made a small, helpless gesture. “i’m trying to keep this clinical.”

you stared at him. really stared this time.

“ryland,” you said slowly, “we are on a single-crew mission with two people.”

“i’m aware.”

“we barely manage everything together on a good day.”

“we’ll adjust.”

“adjust?” you let out a short, disbelieving breath, shaking your head. “we’re already compromised. you said it yourself. attention issues, cognitive interference. you think splitting up is going to make that better?”

his jaw tightened. “it removes the trigger.”

“it removes the only person who can help when something goes wrong,” you shot back. “we don’t have backup. we don’t have a third crew member to pick up the slack. if something breaks, and something will break, we need both of us functional.”

“we are functional,” he insisted, but it came out strained, like he didn’t fully believe it.

you took a step closer without thinking.

his entire body reacted.

it was subtle. so subtle you almost missed it. but it was there: the way his shoulders went rigid, the way his breath hitched just slightly, the way his hands curled like he was holding himself in place.

that alone made your point for you.

you gestured between the two of you. “this is not functional.”

he didn’t answer.

you softened your voice, just a little. “we don’t know how long this is going to last.”

“it could wear off in a few hours,” he said, but it sounded more like hope than certainty.

“or it could be days,” you said quietly.

he didn’t argue.

“or weeks,” you added, pushing it, because you needed him to really think about it, not just cling to the best-case scenario.

“it’s the only plan that doesn’t make things worse. it’s better than the alternative.” he replied.

you stilled. “what alternative?”

he didn’t say anything.

which, unfortunately, was an answer.

you exhaled slowly, your chest tight. “okay. no. we’re not doing this vague shit. we need to actually say it.”

“we really don’t,” he said quickly.

“we do,” you insisted. “because if we don’t, we’re just going to keep circling around it and nothing gets solved.”

he dragged a hand down his face. “no.”

“ryland—”

“no,” he repeated, firmer this time. “we are not— no. that is not the solution.”

you stared at him. you've never heard his voice went that rough. that low. “it’s the only solution that makes sense.”

“it’s not a solution,” he shot back. “it’s—” he stopped, jaw tightening. “it’s not something we should even consider.”

“we both know what this is doing to us,” you pressed, voice low but steady now. “it’s not just going to fade if we sit in separate rooms pretending we’re fine. it’s building. it’s getting worse.”

“i said no,” he repeated, sharper this time.

“and what happens if it peaks while we’re in the middle of something critical?” you continued anyway. “a maneuver, a repair, a calculation— what then? we just hope we can think straight?”

“we will think straight,” he snapped. “we’re not animals.”

“no, we’re worse,” you shot back. “we’re aware of it and still can’t stop it.”

that hit. you saw it land.

he looked away first, jaw flexing, like he was trying to clamp down on something.

“we are not going to make a decision like that under the influence of alien—” he gestured helplessly, “—whatever this is.”

“we might not have a choice,” you said.

“we always have a choice.”

“do we?” you asked. “because right now it feels like we’re both in agony and pretending that distance is going to fix it.”

he flinched. barely, but enough.

“....you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said, quieter now. steadier. like he was forcing the words into place. “okay? whatever this is, it doesn't make that decision for us. you don’t—” he stopped, swallowing. “you don’t owe me anything. not for survival, not for the mission. nothing.”

your expression softened for half a second, before hardening again.

“this isn’t about owing anyone anything,” you said. “this is about reality. about what’s actually happening. we can’t function like this, ryland.”

“we can,” he insisted. “we will.”

“you don’t believe that.”

he didn’t answer.

you stepped closer without thinking. his shoulders tensed immediately, like proximity itself was dangerous.

“look at me,” you said.

he did.

“you’re telling me to isolate,” you said, softer now, but more intense. “to stay away from you, to fight this out on our own, when we both know exactly what would make it stop.”

his breath hitched. just slightly, but he held his ground. “knowing something doesn’t mean we should do it.”

“why not?” you asked. “if it works, if it stabilizes us, if it lets us actually do our jobs…. why not?”

“because that’s not a choice,” he said, the words coming out sharper than he meant them to. “that’s a reaction. that’s the pollen making the decision for us.”

“or it’s us making the best decision with the situation we have,” you countered.

“no,” he said, shaking his head, stepping back now like he needed the space. “no, that’s not the same thing.”

you followed without realizing.

“then what is?” you demanded. “we wait it out and risk compromising the mission? we split up and hope nothing goes wrong? how is that better?”

“because at least it’s ours,” he snapped.

the words hung there. then he froze, like he hadn’t meant to say it that way.

you frowned slightly. “what?”

he dragged a hand down his face, exhaling hard. “if we— if we do this, it shouldn’t be because we’re backed into a corner. it shouldn’t be because some alien dust messed with our heads and left us with one option.”

“it’s still us,” you said. “it’s still our choice.”

“is it?” he asked quietly.

that got you. because there was something in his voice now. something deeper than just logic. something personal.

“i don’t want that,” he went on, more quietly now, but more intense for it. “i don’t want… something like that to happen because we had no other way out. because we were trying to survive it. i don’t want it to be something we look back on and think, ‘we didn’t really choose that.’”

you stared at him.

he looked away again, jaw tight.

“that’s not—” you started, then faltered. “that’s not what this is about.”

“it is for me,” he said.

there was a beat.

“we don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect conditions,” you said, more gently now. “we have a mission. we need each other functioning.”

“i know,” he said. “i know that.”

“then stop pretending this is something we can just outlast.”

“i’m not pretending,” he said, voice rougher now. “i’m choosing the option where you don’t wake up later and regret it.”

pause.

you blinked at him. your voice came out quieter than you intended. “you think i’d regret it.”

“i think,” he said carefully, “that this isn’t exactly a clear-headed situation.”

you opened your mouth but no argument came out. because he wasn’t wrong.

“i’m just saying that it might fix the problem.”

“at what cost?”

a beat.

he stepped closer. just one step, but it closed the gap enough that the heat surged again, sharp and immediate, both of you feeling it.

his hands flexed at his sides like he was actively resisting the instinct to do something else with them.

“you think you won’t regret that?” he asked, voice lower now, rougher around the edges. “you think we won’t look back at this later and realize we only did it because we didn’t have a choice?”

you didn’t answer right away.

he shook his head, almost to himself. “that’s not…. that’s not how that should happen.”

there was something else in his voice then, something quieter, buried under all the logic and resistance. something that didn’t quite belong to the situation at hand.

“if we’re going to—” he stopped, jaw tightening, then tried again. “if something like that ever happens, it shouldn’t be because we’re trying to survive some alien…. whatever this is. it should be because we actually—”

you watched him cutting himself off. the way his shoulders were locked, the way his whole body looked like it was braced against something internal, something he was refusing to let slip.

“isolating wouldn't work,” you said quietly. “we can’t do this alone. not here. not now.”

“maybe not,” he admitted.

“then—”

“but i’m still not doing that,” he cut in.

you blinked. “ryland—”

“i’m not,” he repeated, firmer now. “we’ll figure something else out. we’ll manage it. we have to.”

“even if it makes things harder?”

“yeah,” he said. “even then.”

you searched his face. trying to understand. trying to find the line he wouldn’t cross.

“....you’re really that set on this,” you said.

“yeah,” he said quietly.

another pause.

“....fine,” you said at last, though it didn’t sound like agreement so much as reluctant acceptance. “we do it your way.”

he nodded once.

“we isolate,” you added. “but if it gets worse—”

“we reassess,” he said immediately.

neither of you moved.

just stood there, separated by a few steps and a whole lot of tension, both of you very aware of how fragile that distance felt.

like it could disappear in a second.

like he might cross it.

like you might let him.

his jaw tightened.

his shoulders went rigid again.

and for a split second, he looked like he might—

but then he turned away.

“i’ll take the lab first,” he said, voice a little rough. “you can have the cockpit.”

you swallowed. “okay.”

“we’ll… check in. over comms.”

“right.”

—

you weren't sure what time it was, but two things for certain: you were going crazy because sleep refused to come and the ceiling was mocking you.

you had been lying in bed, tangled in your sheets for what felt like hours but was probably twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, flipping from one side to the other like a rotisserie chicken. the gold dust still simmered under your skin, turning every shift of fabric into slow torture. your tank top clung to your damp chest. your shorts felt too tight, too rough, too everything. you rolled onto your stomach, then flopped onto your back again, kicking the blanket off with a dramatic groan.

“this is stupid,” you muttered into the dark, dragging a pillow over your face like that might solve anything. “this is so fucking stupid. i am the pilot of the hail mary. i’ve navigated black holes in my head. i should not be this horny because of some stupid alien dust.”

another wave of heat rolled through you, settling low and insistent between your legs. you whimpered softly, pressing your thighs together, but that only made it worse.

your brain refused to calm, looping the same thoughts over and over again.

ryland’s voice.

ryland’s face.

ryland's arms.

ryland's hair.

just him in general. the way he’d looked at you before you separated. the way his voice had tightened. the way his shoulders had gone rigid like he was holding himself together by sheer force.

you groaned softly into your pillow, pressing your face into it like that might smother the thoughts.

with a frustrated sigh, you shoved the covers off and swung your legs over the side of the bed, the cool floor a brief relief against overheated skin. you sat there for a second, breathing, trying to steady yourself before started pacing.

“isolation,” you scoffed under your breath, pacing faster. “yeah, great plan, ryland. fantastic plan, ryland. terrific plan! it was never gonna fucking work.”

you sighed again before stopping to take a deep breath.

“okay,” you said to yourself. “it's fine. it's fine! you're okay. you're doing good. just— breathe. it’ll pass.”

you closed your eyes and tried to focus.

in.

out.

in—

“mhmmph—”

pause.

you blinked an eye open.

what—

“mhmphhh— fuckk—”

—the hell was that?

you tilted your head slightly, listening.

at first, nothing. just the low hum of the ship, steady and familiar. long enough you were starting to think that your brain was playing tricks on you.

but then—

“oh, please— please—”

it was soft and faint. slightly uneven. and came from the other side of the wall.

and the other side of the wall was ryland's room.

you froze. you heard it again. a low, muffled whimper drifted through the thin wall

unmistakenly ryland.

he was in the room next to yours.

awake.

and very clearly not handling this any better than you were.

he was trying so hard to stay quiet, really committing to the bit, but failing miserably. another whimper followed, shaky and desperate, quickly bitten off. the faint, rhythmic sound of skin on skin. a muttered curse. your name, whispered like he was cursing the universe for putting him in this position.

heat flooded your face so fast you probably matched the emergency lighting. you stood there, mouth slightly open, ears straining despite yourself.

is he—

no.

no way.

no fucking way.

another moan, softer this time, but unmistakably him. he was doing a terrible job at being stealthy. the wall might as well have been paper.

you paced faster, hands flapping uselessly at your sides like a malfunctioning robot.

dilemma time. big, stupid, pollen-fueled dilemma.

option #1: stay in your room. be responsible. respect the isolation plan he’d suggested earlier like the noble scientist he was. suffer in dignified silence until the dust wore off. maybe meditate. or count rivets in the ceiling. very professional.

option #2: march over there, bang on his door, and finally deal with whatever this is, together.

you stopped, pressing your ear against the cool wall, right where the sounds were loudest. another whimper from his side. your stomach flipped. your body voted very enthusiastically for option two.

“but he said isolate,” you argued with yourself in a harsh whisper. “he was all ‘we’re professionals, we can handle this.’ what if i go over there and he freaks out? what if it’s awkward? what if he opens the door with his dick in his hand and we both just scream?”

you frowned at the mental image. not very flattering thing to think about.

“fuck, no. i’m strong. i’m a pilot. i’ve done evasive maneuvers in asteroid fields. i can handle one night of alien-induced horniness without climbing my crewmate like a tree.”

you resumed pacing, arms crossed tight over your chest like that would somehow contain the fire. three steps. turn. three steps. the sounds from his room continued. another low moan, a bitten-off “shit” that sounded way too sexy for your sanity.

you stopped again, staring at your door like it was the airlock to certain doom.

your hand hovered near the door panel. you yanked it back like the button burned.

“no. professional boundaries. we have a mission. we have dignity. we—”

a particularly broken moan cut through the wall, followed by a muffled thump like he’d smacked his head against something.

you groaned, dragging both hands down your face. “okay, fuck it. i’m weak. i’m so fucking weak. if he doesn’t want this he can yell at me tomorrow when the pollen wears off.”

a beat.

“if…. it ever wears off.” you added.

before you could talk yourself out of it again, you marched to the door, heart hammering like a faulty thruster. you raised your fist and banged on his door, loud, impatient.

no turning back now.

inside, everything went dead silent. then frantic shuffling. something clattered to the floor. then the door finally slid open.

ryland stood there, flushed crimson, hair a disaster, breathing like he’d just run a marathon. his glasses were crooked. shorts wrinkled, barely even on, one hand still guiltily hovering near his waist. his eyes widened comically when he saw you.

you didn’t give him time to speak.

you grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him forward, and kissed him hard.

he made a surprised noise that got immediately swallowed when you kissed him, the door sliding open the rest of the way as he stumbled back into the room.

for a second, he didn’t move. just froze, like his brain had short-circuited.

then his hands came up instinctively, one landing on your waist, the other tangling in your hair as he kissed you back with pent-up desperation. you stumbled forward into his room, mouths still locked, and kicked the door shut behind you with your heel.

the kiss was messy at first. noses bumping, tongues fighting. but neither of you cared. you poured every ounce of frustration and heat into it. his back hit the wall and he used the leverage to pull you closer, hips pressing against yours so you could feel exactly how affected he still was.

after a long, dizzying minute you forced yourself to pull back just enough to breathe.

“wait, wait,” you said, out of air. “you were the one who wanted to isolate. if you want me to stop…. say it. we can pretend this never happened—”

“no— no, no, no, no. don’t you dare,” he said immediately.

you blinked. “what?”

“don’t say we can stop and then actually mean it,” he said, like that was a personal attack. “that’s— no. absolutely not.”

you huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “you were literally the one arguing against this.”

“i know,” he said. “i was wrong. past me was— misguided. naive. deeply out of touch with current events.”

“current events,” you repeated.

“yes,” he said, nodding once, very serious about this. “new data has come to light.”

“and that data is?”

“i need you.”

a beat.

“please.” he stared at you, eyes dark and glassy, lips swollen. his hands flexed on your hips like he was scared you’d vanish. for a heartbeat the only sound was your ragged breathing and the low hum of the ship.

“i tried— i really fucking tried to be good. but this dust is evil and you were just right next door and i’ve been losing my mind for hours. please.”

you couldn't help but chuckled. “yeah, okay. the feeling's mutual.”

“yeah?” he laughed too.

“yeah.”

“can i kiss you again then?”

you smiled. “thought you'd never asked.”

this time it was him who surged forward, kissing you slower this time, deeper, letting the burn build deliberately. his glasses fogged up immediately, the lenses clouding over from the combined heat of your breaths and the pollen still burning through both of you. he didn’t take them off. didn’t even reach for them. just kept kissing you through the haze, like the fog made it somehow hotter. your fingers traced his jaw, his neck, the rapid flutter of his pulse. he shivered under your touch.

you walked him backward toward the bunk without breaking the kiss. when his knees hit the edge he sat down heavily, pulling you with him so you straddled his lap. the new position pressed you right against the hard line of him, making you both gasp into each other’s mouths.

slowly, reverently, you started undressing each other. your hands slid under his shirt, palms mapping the warm, flushed skin of his chest. he lifted his arms so you could tug it off. you tossed it somewhere behind you, leaving him in only his fogging glasses. he returned the favor, peeling your tank top up inch by inch, kissing every new strip of skin he revealed. your stomach, the underside of your breast, your collarbone, until the fabric was gone.

his fingers hooked into the waistband of your shorts. you rose up on your knees so he could slide them down your thighs along with your underwear. you kicked them away. then you focused on his shorts, tugging them down slowly, savoring the way his breath hitched when you freed him.

naked now, you settled back onto his lap, skin to skin. the contact was electric. you took your time, rocking gently against him without taking him inside yet, just feeling the slide and heat while you kissed him lazily, tongues tangling in slow, filthy strokes.

you reached between your bodies, wrapping your hand around him. he groaned loud, head tipping back, the sound vibrating through his chest. “fuck— your hand feels so good,” he breathed, hips twitching up into your grip. “don’t tease me, baby— been dying for this.”

“you sure about this?” you murmured against his lips between kisses, giving him one last out even as your hips rolled in a slow, teasing circle.

“never been more sure of anything in my life,” he breathed, hands gripping your thighs.

you laughed softly into his mouth, the sound turning into a moan when he shifted his hips just right. one of his hands slid between your bodies, fingers exploring with gentle, curious touches until you were trembling.

only then did you reach down, wrap your hand around him, and guide him to your entrance. you sank down inch by torturous inch, both of you moaning at the slow, perfect stretch. when you were fully seated you stayed there for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other in while your bodies adjusted.

then you started to move.

slow rolls of your hips at first, savoring every drag and press. ryland’s head tipped back, exposing the long line of his throat. you leaned in to kiss along his jaw, his neck, sucking lightly at his pulse point while you rode him with deliberate, unhurried patience. his hands roamed your back, your sides, your breasts, learning every curve like it was new data he needed to memorize.

gradually the rhythm built. your movements grew deeper, harder. the bunk creaked steadily. soft gasps and moans filled the small room. his fingers found your clit, rubbing tight circles that made your rhythm falter and your breath catch.

“ryland— fuck, just like that—”

“you feel so good,” he panted, voice breaking on the words. “oh, baby— don’t stop, please—”

it hit you like a solar flare. you cried out his name loud, clenching around him hard, hips stuttering through the waves. he followed right after, burying himself deep with a broken, guttural moan.

“yes— fuck— coming— inside you— god, you’re perfect— take it all—”

you collapsed against his chest, both of you trembling, hearts hammering in sync. his arms wrapped around you tight, holding you close while the aftershocks rolled through, glasses still fogged and slightly askew on his nose.

for a long moment, neither of you said anything.

which, considering everything that had just happened, felt both appropriate and deeply suspicious.

you were half sprawled across him, one leg tangled with his, your arm draped somewhere over his chest like you’d both simply…. collapsed and decided to stay that way. the room was quiet except for your breathing, slowly evening out, though not nearly fast enough to feel normal.

ryland was staring at the ceiling.

very intently.

like it had just revealed the meaning of life and he was still processing it.

“....so,” you said eventually.

“so,” he echoed.

another pause.

you shifted slightly, propping your chin on his chest so you could look at him. “on a scale from one to ‘we should never speak of this again,’ where are you at?”

he didn’t look at you.

“....i’m considering faking amnesia.”

you snorted. “wow. rude.”

“i’m kidding,” he said quickly, then paused. “....mostly.”

“mostly,” you repeated.

“okay, no, that sounded worse than i meant it,” he said, finally turning his head toward you, eyes wide like he was trying to fix it in real time. “i don’t regret it. i do not regret it. i just—” he gestured vaguely with one hand, which was difficult considering you were partially pinning him down, “—need a second to emotionally catch up with my own life choices.”

you raised an eyebrow. “your life choices led you to space.”

“for the record, i did not consent to that.”

fair, but you ignored him. “and then to alien pollen.”

“unfortunately, yes.”

“and then to me.”

he hesitated.

“....that part i’m less willing to categorize as a mistake.”

you stared at him for a second.

then narrowed your eyes. “that was almost smooth.”

“thank you,” he said. “i panicked halfway through it.”

“i could tell.”

another stretch of quiet settled in, but it was…. different now. looser. like the tension that had been buzzing under your skin all day had finally burned itself out, leaving something softer in its place.

“....for the record,” you added after a moment, “your ‘being quiet’ plan earlier? terrible.”

he made a strangled noise. “oh my god.”

“like, impressively bad,” you continued. “i heard everything.”

“you did not hear everything.”

“ryland.”

he covered his face with both hands, cheeks heated up. “i would like to be ejected into space now.”

“denied,” you said immediately. “we need you for the mission.”

“please, just kill me already.”

“also,” you added, very seriously, “for future reference, the wall is not soundproof.”

“i have gathered that,” he said into his hands.

“just making sure.”

he peeked at you through his fingers. “....are you going to bring this up again later?”

“oh, constantly.”

“i walked into that one.”

“you really did.”

another quiet moment passed.

you could feel his breathing steady under you now, less uneven, less strained.

“....hey,” he said after a while.

“yeah?”

there was a small pause before he spoke again, like he was choosing his words more carefully this time. “are you okay?”

it caught you off guard.

not the question itself, but the way he asked it. steady. grounded, like he needed the answer to mean something.

you blinked, then nodded. “yeah,” you said, softer. “i am.”

he turned his head then, just enough to look at you properly, like he needed the visual confirmation to go with it.

“....okay,” he said finally, the word carrying more weight than it should have. “i'm glad.”

you nudged him lightly with your shoulder, a small, grounding kind of contact. “you?”

he let out a breath that sounded like it had been stuck somewhere in his chest for a while. “yeah. i think so. which is honestly surprising, given…. everything.”

“everything,” you echoed.

“yeah,” he repeated.

another quiet stretch settled over you, but it wasn’t awkward. not really. just…. calm, in a slightly surreal, post-chaos kind of way.

eventually, the exhaustion caught up with you. real, actual exhaustion this time. not the restless, jittery kind from before.

you shifted closer without thinking, your head settling more comfortably against him.

he stilled for half a second then relaxed. his arm tightening just slightly around you.

“also,” he added, voice softer now, almost drowsy, “for the record…. i don’t regret it.”

your chest tightened. you didn’t lift your head, didn’t look at him. just let the words settle somewhere quiet inside you.

“…me neither,” you murmured.

that was the last coherent thing either of you said.

“Do you think Vice Captain Lohen is hiding something?”

This was a question that Ekbert has been tossing around in his mind for the past few weeks. He tried not to dwell on it too much since unnecessary speculation could only lead to unnecessary squabbles. But as he polished the hilt of his sword, he couldn’t help but let his gaze trail after the Vice Captain of the 5th Company as the man descended the stone steps of Favonius Keep.

To anyone else, Lohen was exactly as he had been since they first marched into the farthest reaches of Nod Krai: a cold, deranged fighting machine. His hair was somehow perpetually ruffled, and those dull red eyes always seemed to scan the horizon for something to kill. He looked every bit the sadistic officer who had whipped the recruits into a force capable of surviving the Abyss. Lohen was a man who didn’t do subtlety. If he hated you, he told you. If he wanted to break your spirit during training, he did it with a smile that never reached his eyes. But as Lohen vanished past the perimeter fence for yet another solo patrol, Ekbert felt a prickle of unease.

“Give it a rest, Ekbert,” Winfried sighed, leaning against a supply crate. “The Wild Hunt is gone. Rerir is gone. The Vice Captain is probably just... itching for a fight. You don’t spend years hunting monsters and then just stop because the Honorary Knight finished the job.”

“That’s the thing,” Ekbert hissed before turning to his comrade. “Vice Captain Lohen is always itching for a fight. But have you seen him lately? He’d disappear for hours and you won’t find a speck of blood on his uniform. Since when does the guy come back from a patrol without a scratch or two?”

Winfried just laughed. “He’s probably learned how to use that Cryo Vision to stay clean so he won’t give the knights on laundry duty a heart attack. You’re overthinking it, man. Maybe you should’ve taken that transfer back to Mondstadt.”

Ekbert shook his head. He wasn’t crazy.

All this started after you disappeared.

You hadn’t exactly been with the expeditionary force from the start. You were part of the late reinforcements, summoned personally by Grand Master Varka from the Reconnaissance Corps back home. They needed someone agile, someone who was professionally trained to slip through the shadows and stake out the enemy before the Knights could close in for a siege. While their usual scouts could do this just fine, you operated twice as fast and twice as efficient.

But despite the nature of your work, you were a breath of fresh air in a camp that smelled of old blood and dandelion wine. You’d linked up with the rest of them quite easily, sharing stories from home while the rest of the knights huddled for warmth. But it was your behavior around Lohen that had everyone especially enthralled by your presence.

You had the sheer, unadulterated guts to tease him. You’d prod at the elaborate corset he wore under his coat, asking if it helped his posture while he was busy berating a trainee, or you’d make some cheeky comment about how he’s probably as bloodthirsty as he was because he was compensating for something (read: his height). Everyone expected Lohen to snap. Whether it would be challenging you to a spar or assigning you to the most dangerous vanguard post, the Vice Captain always set straight anyone who dared to cross him.

Instead, Lohen would just stare at you with those eerily blank eyes of his, and tell you to get out of his sight before he found a use for your misplaced confidence. Which was, of course, a shock to anyone and everyone who had the misfortune to train under him.

As the campaign wore on, Lohen’s unusual tolerance for your presence shifted from a camp-wide spectacle to a quiet, functional staple of their operation. While you threaded through the frost as the Reconnaissance Corps’ primary ghost, mapping the Wild Hunt’s movements, Lohen sat hunkered over jagged maps with Anselm and Nannina, translating your intel into lethal strikes.

This seamless synergy didn’t escape the Grand Master’s notice. Despite Lohen’s abrasive personality and your penchant for poking the bear, the expeditionary force had transformed into a singular, razor-sharp weapon. Varka watched on with boisterous approval, less concerned with the strange social friction between the two of you and more impressed by how his subordinates had become the very axis upon which the campaign’s success turned.

In fact, you two were so in-sync, Ekbert and the others were quite certain you’d be absorbed into the Fifth Company in no time.

Until you went missing, that is.

“Ekbert!”

The sharp bark of Winfried’s voice snapped the thread of Ekbert’s thoughts. He blinked, the phantom image of your teasing smile fading as he was shoved back into the reality of the Favonius Keep courtyard.

“Get your head out of the clouds and grab a corner of this crate!” his fellow knight pleaded with a grunt. “This shipment isn’t as massive as our usual, but it’s still rotten work.”

As Ekbert got ahold of his senses, he spotted several wooden crates branded with the seals of the Dawn Winery and Good Hunter being hoisted off a nearby carriage. The scent of aged oak and fermented grapes cut through the biting chill of the Nod Krai air—a cruel reminder of the home they were still waiting to return to.

“Sorry,” Ekbert muttered, lunging forward to catch the rough wood before it could slip from Winfried’s grip. He grunted under the weight, his muscles straining as they maneuvered the shipment toward the supply tent.

“Speculating about the Captain won’t get these rations into the racks,” Winfried huffed as his face reddened from the exertion. “And it certainly won’t bring the Recon scout back. The Grand Master already had the entirety of Nod Krai combed twice. If he says the trail went cold, it’s cold. Got it?”

Ekbert didn’t argue.

He forced himself to focus on the rhythmic thud of boots on stone and the mundane logistics of post-war occupation. He hoisted barrels of flour, counted bundles of medicinal herbs, and tried to ignore the nagging itch in the back of his mind. He told himself that Winfried was right—maybe the stress of the campaign did make him paranoid. Lohen was likely just relishing the silence of a land without monsters, and your disappearance was just another tragic casualty of a war that had claimed too many.

Yet, as Ekbert hauled the last crate of bandages toward the medical tent around midnight, he couldn’t help but notice that the supply log was already short three rolls.

And the Vice Captain had yet to return from his patrol.

That monster wrapped your bandages too tight again.

Every pulse of your blood felt like a dull hammer striking against the sensitive, raw skin where he’d nicked you on purpose, a constant reminder of the metal that bit into you whenever he wasn’t “caring” for you. You were slumped against the foot of a rotted wooden bedframe, your ankles secured by heavy, rusted iron shackles to a thick support beam that felt as immovable as the frost-laden earth of Snezhnaya itself.

Through the cracks in the cabin’s walls, the distant roar of the sea drifted in, the violent crashing of waves against a jagged shore. It most likely placed you somewhere near the Lightkeeper stronghold in Piramida, though the geography of your prison mattered little when your own mind was a fractured mess.

The lingering haze of whatever concoction Lohen had forced down your throat always made the world tilt sideways. It was a chemical leash designed to strip away your Fatui training, leaving you pliant, babbling, and sickeningly open to his whims. You felt a wave of nausea, not just from the drug, but from the crushing weight of your own humiliation.

You had played them all for fools—or so you thought. Your successful infiltration of the Knights of Favonius made you arrogant. You thought they were soft, a collection of self-righteous idealists blinded by their own sense of justice. People like them would never brand a comrade who’d assimilated so seamlessly into their ranks as a traitor.

But Lohen was not like them.

He was the rot in the woodwork, a cold-blooded outlier in an organization of posturing heroes. You suspected the only reason the Knights of Favonius tolerated a battle-crazed lunatic like Lohen was because someone had to be cruel enough to handle the grisly work their ranks were too noble to touch. To them, he was a necessary evil; to you, he was a waking nightmare. He hadn’t just caught a spy. He had claimed a new toy to break in the isolated dark of the aftermath.

The Vice Captain was a connoisseur of weapons, and he took a delight in showing you exactly why the 5th Company was known for the full range of its arsenal. He’d start by using the cold, heavy shaft of his polearm to pin your shoulders against the rotted wood, the weight of the weapon making it hard to draw a full breath as he loomed over you. With you trapped under the length of the pole, he would draw one of his daggers, the blade gleaming with a dull, predatory light that matched his eyes.

He treated your skin like parchment for his incident reports, dragging the tip in slow, agonizingly steady lines across your collarbone and thighs—not deep enough to reach a vein, but certainly enough to ensure you wouldn’t forget the sensation for days. He would narrate the process in that detached, airy voice, debating whether a Snezhnayan spy’s blood ran colder than a Knight’s as it pooled in the hollows of your skin.

“Does it hurt?” he cooed at you once, his tone dripping with mockery. “Or is the drug finally making you forget which side of the border you were born on?”

Once Lohen had mapped your body in fresh, stinging nicks and left you shivering from the combined chill of his Cryo Vision and your own terror, the caretaking would begin. He would transition seamlessly from butcher to medic, his expression softening into something terrifyingly domestic. He would sit on the edge of the rotting bed, humming a low, tuneless Mondstadtian lullaby while he dabbed antiseptic onto the very wounds he had just opened.

He’d whisper about the tragedy of your disappearance, telling you how much the other knights missed you and how Winfried had toasted to your memory—all while tightening a tourniquet or wrapping a bandage just enough to make your nerves go numb. By the time he was finished, your mind was so fractured by the drugs and the pain that you found yourself leaning into his touch, seeking warmth from the same hand that still held the blood-stained blade.

He had swiped your dignity from under your nose, leaving you with the sickening realization that he was now the only world you had left.

Yet he always acted as if you still had a choice in the matter.

The passage of time in this cabin was a jagged, broken thing. Between the constant fog of the drugs and Lohen’s masterful psychological pacing, the interval between his visits felt like a blurred eternity or a heartbeat’s flash. You weren’t sure if it had been days or simply minutes since he last wiped the blood from your skin, yet here he was again, the heavy click of his boots signaling the end of your reprieve.

He set down a lantern—one he had clearly nabbed from a Lightkeeper. There was never a schedule to his cruelty; he might arrive when the sun was at its zenith, or ensure your muffled cries were swallowed by the dead of night. Today, the way he adjusted the silver wing-shaped crest on his chest suggested he intended to take his time.

“You look pale, little bird,” he murmured, crouching before you. He began to forcefully spoon a lukewarm broth into your mouth. You knew the taste. He had spiked it again with that same hallucinogen that turned your thoughts into sluggish, melting wax.

“Eat. I can’t have you fading away before we’ve had our talk.”

Lohen tilted your head back, his gloved fingers digging into the hinges of your jaw to ensure you swallowed every drop of the laced meal. He wanted you receptive, vulnerable, and utterly untethered from your own mind. In your hapless state, all you could do was submit to his whims, gulping down the sustenance that served as your leash until the bowl was emptier than your mind.

“Now, tell me,” the Vice Captain whispered, his dull red eyes searching yours for a flicker of clarity. “Are you in the mood to finally fess up today? Or do I need to remind you that the Tsaritsa cannot hear you when you’re so far away from home? I’m not as cruel as you think, you know. I told you time and time again that you need only tell me your orders and I’ll let you go.”

Despite the warmth of the broth and the deceptive softness of his voice, you fought the urge to spill everything. Your loyalty to Snezhnaya was the only thing the drug couldn’t quite dissolve, even as your humanity was being stripped bare. You clamped your teeth shut, a glare of defiance cutting through the haze, but Lohen only sighed with a terrifyingly patient smile.

“Still playing the martyr, huh? How tedious.” He set the bowl aside and reached for the polearm leaning against the wall, the metal tip catching the lantern light. “If you won’t give me your mind, I suppose I’ll just have to settle for the rest of you.”

The heavy hilt scraped against the uneven floorboards as Lohen lifted it with casual ease, the long shaft gleaming faintly in the lantern’s sickly light. He never rushed when he had you like this—trapped, drugged, and deliciously defiant. The metal tip hovered near your collarbone for a moment, tracing the air just above the half-healed lines he’d left days ago, before he angled it higher.

“Hold still, little bird,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t want to slip.”

The cold edge of the polearm’s blade kissed the side of your neck, just below the jaw. Not the flat of the weapon this time. The sharp tip. It pressed in with surgical precision, breaking skin in one clean, shallow nick. A thin line of crimson welled up immediately, warm against the perpetual chill of the cabin.

Lohen’s dull red eyes tracked the bead as it slid downward, following the curve of your throat.

“Did you know,” he began conversationally, “the human body is a masterpiece of fragile plumbing? You’ve got all these little rivers of arteries and veins and capillaries under the skin. One wrong cut and it’s over in seconds. The carotid here,” the blade shifted ever so slightly, pressing just beside the fresh nick, “branches into the external and internal. Slice it clean and you’ll bleed out before you can even scream properly. Then there’s the jugular. That one’s less dramatic, but just as effective if you want someone to suffer a bit first.”

He tilted his head, studying you like a specimen on a dissection table.

“I apprenticed under an old doctor once. Not because I had any interest in saving lives, mind you. Quite the opposite. I wanted to learn the fastest ways to end them. Turns out medicine and murder share the same textbooks.” Lohen took a moment to simper. “Funny, isn’t it?”

Another tiny flick of the polearm. Another shallow cut, parallel to the first. More blood trickled down, warm and sticky, soaking into the collar of the thin shirt he’d dressed you in after the last session.

You bit back a gasp, body tensing against the shackles. The sting was sharp, immediate, but the drug made it bloom into something that sank low in your belly despite the hatred burning in your chest.

Lohen set the polearm aside with a soft clatter and crouched closer, boots creaking on the warped wood. His gloved hand came up to brush his fingers along the fresh wounds almost tenderly. Then he leaned in, tongue dragging slowly along the trail of blood on your neck. The wet heat of it made you shiver violently, an involuntary full-body tremor that had nothing to do with the cold.

A satisfied hum vibrated against your skin as he licked again, tasting the copper-salt of you.

“See?” he whispered, breath ghosting over the cuts. “Your body already knows what your mind refuses to admit. It craves this the pain. The way I put you back together after I break you open.”

You hated it. You hated how your pulse raced, how slick was already traitorously gathering between your thighs, soaking into the fabric of the skirt he’d brought last time. Your training screamed at you to fight and spit defiance, but Lohen had spent weeks rewiring you. Every cut and bruise, every humiliating moment of care afterward had conditioned your nerves to associate his cruelty with the only relief you ever received.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, those empty red eyes gleaming with dark amusement.

“Interrogation was never really my strong suit, you know,” he continued casually as he reached down. His fingers slipped beneath the hem of the skirt, pushing the fabric up your thighs. “Too much talking. Too much waiting for answers that might never come. I prefer a more… proactive approach.”

His hand found your clothed cunt, palm pressing firmly against the growing dampness. He rubbed slow circles, the heel of his hand grinding against your clit through the thin underwear while two fingers teased along your slit, feeling exactly how wet you’d become. A soft, mocking chuckle escaped him when you couldn’t suppress the small hitch in your breath.

“Look at that. Seems like this little Snezhnayan spy is fucked up enough on her own.”

He kept talking, voice steady and taunting even as he massaged your throbbing pussy with practiced ease, fingers pressing harder, coaxing more slick to ruin the fabric.

“Routine suits us, doesn’t it?” The monster laughs. “I taunt you. I defile every last inch of that proud body until you’re crying. Then I patch you up, feed you, hold you until the drugs pull you under. And the next time I walk through that door… we start the whole thing all over again because you’re just too stubborn to save yourself from all of this.”

Gods damn him.

Your mind was a storm of conflict. You knew how to escape. The lock on the shackles was laughably flimsy. One calculated twist of your wrist, a bit of wire you’d hidden in the hem of the skirt during his last session, and you could be free. Slip out into the night, disappear into the wilds of Nod Krai before he returned. But as Lohen’s fingers continued their relentless, teasing massage—pressing, circling, occasionally dipping just under the edge of your underwear to feel the bare heat of you—your eyes met his. Those dull red eyes. Cold and predatory. Utterly in control.

You didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Not when the pain he gave you made the pleasure burn brighter. Not when his twisted version of care was the only warmth left in your fractured world. Not when the monster wearing the Favonius crest had somehow become the center of everything.

Lohen’s smile widened, slow and knowing, as if he could read every traitorous thought flickering behind your hazy gaze.

“Good girl,” he purred, pressing a little harder against your clit, watching your hips twitch despite yourself. “Keep looking at me like that and I might just forget about the questions for tonight. We have all the time in the world… now that you’re exactly where you belong.”

Lohen didn’t move to strip you. There was something more degrading about the way he kept you partially dressed—the soft skirt bunched up around your waist a mocking contrast to the heavy iron biting into your ankles. He kept his overcoat on, the silver wing-shaped crest on his chest pressing against your shoulder as he crowded into your space, a constant reminder of the rank he held while he systematically dismantled yours.

He didn’t bother offering you the dignity of the bed either. You remained on the cold, grit-covered floorboards. He liked it better this way—forcing you to endure his touch in the dust, proving you didn’t even deserve the luxury of being degraded on a mattress.

He used his free hand to snare both your wrists, wrenching them upward and pinning them against the rotted support beam. The movement was sharp and unforgiving, pulling your arms so taut that the fresh nicks on your neck flared with red-hot agony as the skin stretched. You could only let out a fractured mewl, your breath hitching in your throat before you could even draw air. With a flick of his wrist, Lohen hooked two fingers into the elastic of your underwear and yanked it aside, exposing your dripping heat to the biting chill of the cabin for only a heartbeat before his fingers slip inside you with delicious friction from his gloves.

The rough leather dragged against your inner walls as two thick digits pushed deeper, stretching you open without mercy or preamble. Lohen didn’t ease you into it—he never did. He curled them immediately, pressing hard against that spongy spot inside you that made your vision spark white even through the haze. A broken sound tore from your throat. Your hips jerked involuntarily, trying to chase the sudden fullness, but the shackles on your ankles kept your legs splayed and helpless. The cold floorboards bit into your bare ass where the skirt had bunched uselessly around your waist.

“Shh,” Lohen cooed, soft and mocking as he pumped his fingers in a slow, deliberate rhythm. “Listen to you. Already making such pretty noises for a traitor. Does it feel good, little bird? Having a Knight of Favonius knuckle-deep in this greedy cunt?”

He scissored his fingers, stretching you wider, the wet, obscene sounds of your slick echoing in the quiet cabin. He knew exactly where to press, exactly how deep to go to make your thighs tremble and your breath stutter.

Your head lolled back against the rotted beam, fresh blood from the nicks on your neck trickling warmer down your skin. The pain and pleasure twisted together until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Every time his fingers dragged over that sensitive bundle of nerves inside you, another gush of slick coated his hand, dripping down to smear across your thighs and the dusty floor. Lohen leaned in closer, his ruffled hair brushing your cheek.

“Look at how wet you are,” he whispered, adding a third finger without warning. The burn of the stretch pulled a sharp cry from you. “Crying for mercy with your mouth, but this sloppy little hole is begging for more. You hate me, don’t you? You hate how much you need this. How much your body has learned to crave the monster who keeps you chained up like a dog.”

He twisted his wrist, curling all three fingers viciously, thumb coming up to grind rough circles over your swollen clit. The dual assault made your back arch violently, a wrecked sob spilling from your lips as stars burst behind your eyelids.

“Please—ah, fuck… Lohen—”

The name slipped out before you could stop it. His dull red eyes flashed with dark delight.

“Oh? Using my name now?” He laughed, low and cruel, speeding up the brutal pace of his fingers. Wet squelching filled the cabin, louder than the distant roar of the sea. “How sweet. Beg for it properly then. Tell me what you want, spy. Tell your captor how badly you need to cum on the fingers that just carved your neck open.”

You shook your head, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes, but your hips rolled desperately against his hand, chasing every thrust like a high you desperately wanted to keep. The drug made everything feel liquid and overwhelming—every stroke and press, every filthy word sinking straight into your core and melting your resistance into nothing.

Lohen’s free hand left your wrists only long enough to grab your jaw, forcing your head up so you had to meet his empty, predatory gaze.

“Don’t look away,” he ordered, voice dropping into that dangerous, silky tone. “I want to watch your face when you break. I want to see the exact moment the proud Fatui agent realizes she’s nothing but a desperate whore for Mondstadt’s favorite butcher.”

His fingers fucked into you harder, faster, the heel of his palm slapping wetly against your clit with every brutal plunge. Pleasure coiled tight and vicious in your belly, building so quickly it terrified you. Your walls clenched greedily around him, sucking his fingers deeper as if your body had already surrendered even if your mind still screamed traitor.

“P-please, Lohen... Too much. I can’t... ah, I’m gonna—”

“That’s it. Cry for me,” he growled. “You could’ve escaped days ago, but here you are, dripping all over my hand like the pathetic little toy you were always meant to be.”

As you teetered on the knife’s edge of release, Lohen’s Cryo Vision flared. A sudden, biting frost blossomed from his palm, turning the heat of your friction into a searing, sub-zero burn. The metal guards on his wrists grew lethally cold, pressing against your inner thighs until the skin stung with the sensation of dry ice. The contrast was a violent assault; the core of you was a fevered, pulsing furnace, while his touch had become a frozen blade, carving through your sensory static.

He didn’t just let the cold sit. He pulsed it—letting the frostbite-chill numb your clit for a terrifying second before withdrawing the power, allowing the blood to rush back in a stinging, hypersensitive flood. You sobbed at the whiplash, your hips bucking helplessly against the floorboards as he forced your body to navigate a landscape of fire and ice.

He sent one final, concentrated surge of Cryo through his gloved fingers as they buried themselves deep inside you. The internal freeze acted like a detonator, and the pressure snapped instantly.

Your orgasm hit like a lightning strike to a fraying wire. Your whole body seized, thighs racking with uncontrollable tremors as you came hard around his fingers, your slick gushing out to soak his glove and the grimy floorboards beneath you. A strangled scream tore from your throat, raw and humiliating, echoing off the cabin walls while your vision fractured into a blinding, white-hot void.

Lohen didn’t offer you the mercy of a reprieve. He drew out every last agonizing spasm, forcing your exhausted muscles to contract again and again until the pleasure became an unbearable noise. You were left twitching beneath him, your nerves raw and exposed, sobbing openly as the last of your resistance was washed away by the sheer, brutal weight of his persistence.

“Good girl,” he purred, finally slowing but not to offer you mercy.

With a slow, deliberate suction, he withdrew his fingers from your fluttering heat. You felt a cold, hollow ache the moment he left you, but he didn’t give you time to mourn the loss. He grabbed your chin, tilting your head back until you were forced to look at his stained leather glove, glistening under the lantern’s sickly glow.

“Such a messy, broken thing,” he whispered, the dull red of his eyes fixated on your trembling lips. “And you still haven’t told me what I want to know. I’ll need to praise whoever trained you, really. But for now, don’t let a drop go to waste.”

He shoved his fingers into your mouth, the taste of leather and the sharp, salty tang of your own release hitting your tongue all at once. The drug-induced haze in your mind combined with the crushing need to please him stripped away the last of your hesitation. You didn’t pull back. Instead, you made a pathetic, broken noise and began to enthusiastically lap at his fingers, your tongue swirling around the gloved digits to catch every bit of your own ruin. You tasted yourself, flavored by the copper of your fresh wounds, and for a terrifying second, it was the best thing you had ever had.

You were a map of shallow, stinging nicks lying beneath him. The fresh cuts on your neck had only just begun to clot, the tacky copper of your own blood smearing against his hand and your collar right after he pulled his fingers from your lips. You looked down at your shackled ankles and your ravaged skin, and the horror that should have consumed you was replaced by a hollow, sickening sort of peace. The Tsaritsa, Snezhnaya, your mission—they were all becoming distant, meaningless ghosts compared to the heavy, solid weight of the man pinning you to the floor.

Lohen grinned maniacally. “But that’s alright. We have all night. I’ll fuck every last secret out of you eventually…” He leaned in, licking another slow stripe over the slowly healing cuts on your neck, tasting blood and sweat and surrender. “Or maybe I’ll just keep you like this forever. My perfect, dripping captive who doesn’t even want to leave anymore.”

His red eyes bored into yours, pressing his fingers on the flat of your lolling tongue once more.

“After all… you’re right where you belong now, aren’t you, little bird?”

The night air in Piramida was thick with salt and the biting chill of the ocean, but the sweat on Ekbert’s palms had nothing to do with the humidity. For hours, he had trailed the Vice Captain through the terrain, moving like a ghost through the pines until the silhouette of a dilapidated cabin appeared against the moonlit cliffs.

He watched from the tall grass as Lohen disappeared inside, the heavy door thudding shut with a finality that made Ekbert’s stomach churn. He waited. One hour passed, then two. The sounds of the crashing waves below were occasionally punctuated by muffled, rhythmic thuds and high-pitched, unintelligible cries that the wind quickly snatched away. Ekbert contemplated retreating—turning back to the safety of Favonius Keep and pretending he had never followed his superior.

But the gnawing suspicion continued to burn in his mind. With a pounding heart and a sense of dread he couldn’t quite stomp down, he stepped onto the porch. The wood groaned under his weight. He took a breath, steeling himself, and knocked.

The silence that followed was deafening. But then, the slow click-clack of metal-soled boots approached the door. It creaked open only a few centimeters. Lohen stood there with his mint-green hair disheveled and his coat draped loosely over one shoulder. His dull red eyes narrowed, eyeing the shivering recruit with a terrifying, vacant calm that made Ekbert’s knees weak. Despite being the taller man, Ekbert felt small, like a mouse that had accidentally wandered into a viper’s nest.

“V-Vice Captain,” Ekbert stammered. “I... We were worried you hadn’t checked in with your patrols.”

Lohen stared at him for a long beat, a predatory smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Worried? About me? Well that’s a first. Consider me touched, Ekbert.”

Without another word, Lohen kicked the door wide, the lantern light from inside spilling out to illuminate the nightmare within. Ekbert’s breath hitched, his gorge rising as his brain struggled to process the figure chained to the bedframe.

It was you.

The Recon scout. The one they’d combed the entire region for. But you were practically unrecognizable like this—stripped bare, your body a roadmap of silver scars and fresh, weeping nicks that hinted at a violent history. A thick roll of gauze was wrapped tight around your neck, stained at the edges with the copper of your surrender.

But it was the sound you made that truly broke Ekbert’s spirit.

“L-Lohen... where’d you go?” you slurred, your head lolling back as you looked past the doorway with pupils blown wide and glassy. You didn’t even seem to see Ekbert; your entire world had narrowed down to the monster in the indigo coat. “Don’t stop... please... come back and make me feel good again. I’ll be good, I promise...”

Ekbert stepped back, his hand trembling as it went to the hilt of his sword. “Vice Captain... what have you done to her?”

Lohen didn’t look at you; he kept his gaze on the horrified knight, a perverse sort of amusement dancing in his eyes. “Just doing my job; wringing intel from a Snezhnayan spy. She’s been quite stubborn about her secrets, but I’m nothing if not patient. Only took a few weeks for her to finally give a detailed account of the Tsaritsa’s plans moving forward. Though, I feel like there’s still more to uncover.”

Not letting Ekbert stew in the shock of finding out one of their comrades was actually Fatui scum, Lohen reached into his belt and pulled out one of his gleaming daggers.

“You’re just in time actually. She’s finally starting to learn her place,” Lohen purred, his voice dropping into a silky, inviting tone. He stepped aside, inviting the younger knight into the room filled with the scent of blood and sex.

Then, he held out the weapon hilt-first to Ekbert.

“Care to join us?”

✦ afterword. rip to ekbert, the unsuspecting npc i picked out of favonius keep to also indirectly torture in this fic. you are a brave soldier, you! if you made it this far, congratulations. you deserve a round of dandelion wine on the house. will i pull for lohen when he comes out? probably not, but he is very amusing to write for, seeing as he's like childe without adderall LOL please be kind to me, this is the first time i've written smth like this BSHDBSHGBDF t_t

It almost tells a story of what could have been, or what could be caught up from the time stolen away from the years of tiptoeing, of growing as individuals.

He cradles your cheeks with both hands as his kisses go from your mouth to the edge of your lips, to your jaw, your cheeks, your eyelids, your nose. A single kiss on the lips turns into a thousand all over the canvas of your face, and you’re drowning in his tenderness, like a quiet spoken avowal of how he truly feels about you.

He doesn't let you go after the first kiss—or the thousand he gives you after that. You’re stuck and swaddled perfectly within his embrace, his nose tracing a delicate line on your jaw as he nuzzles deeper. You would have never guessed that the Oikawa is in fact, huge on cuddling, and once he has someone on his mind and now in his arms, you know you’re not escaping him or his reverent touches anytime soon. He tells you that it’s not enough—never enough. Each kiss would hold a purpose, he says.

Every press of lips is tantamount to the distance it takes from his former home to reach Argentina, and he’ll kiss you a hundred times over till it’s time to return back.

But this time, he leaves not with a heavy heart of cabineted longing.

IWAIZUMI

Rugged and robust is what you would describe Iwaizumi Hajime. You’ve met him briefly at the peak of his high school career when he’s nothing but rough-edged and even rougher tones that would leave you awestruck at such an impassioned display. Whenever you would find yourself watching the Aoba Johsai volleyball matches, you would find your heart stirring whenever you see that familiar spiky hair on the court, raw and beguiling.

That was years ago, and although he’s stopped playing the sport that he cherishes, he’s still somewhat the same nine years later—except a little more mellow and wrapped with more solid muscles and steadier body and life. You did not expect him to react the way that he did when you’d kiss him in his own living room. Wine-stained lips and warm-cheeked.

Kissing Iwaizumi is tenderness born in the flesh, despite his rough-hewn looks and sharp eyes—the moment his lips mold with yours, he melts and softens. He allows you to push him into the sofas, to feel his large, calloused hands stationed on your hips as he places you squarely on his lap as the kiss deepens, drowns even. Iwaizumi was always confident in the things that he does, but being here in this small, ethereal peace with you, sharing something so utterly sacred?

He cannot help but let his fingers tremble ever so slightly when he holds you close, closer even.

He’s scared that he’ll hurt you if he goes too far. But you’ve known Iwaizumi long enough to realize this—being a constant person in his life after everyone parted ways in high school, keeping touch through phone calls and text messages and video calls, feeling all of him when he comes back, wrapping his large arms around you so gently it could hardly be called an embrace.

There’s an underlying fear in his heart that he never shows anyone, the little gentle twists and turns he would go through for you that leaves his friends aghast at such a contrasting behavior. He knows it isn’t right to treat you like you’re fragile, but to him, you meant the whole world, something so soft and so unlike him, and he would be damned if he so much as bruised you. You are quick to give him reassurance, the soft press of your lips against the side of his warm neck, mumbling that it’s okay, that he can go farther if he wanted to, that you were okay.

You were always okay when it came to him, and the welcoming invitation allows Iwaizumi to be chest-to-chest with you. His hands crawl up to cup your neck and pull you even closer so he can taste your mouth better.

HANAMAKI

Kissing Makki happened in a spur of the moment between the back and forth banters you two usually share that quickly honeyed the atmosphere with tension thick enough to prick with a blade. One thing led to the other and before you know it, one of you had leaned in to hush the other of their retorts by pressing lips in almost a clumsy manner at first, then came the realization of what had just happened, before diving back in to taste each other’s mouths once again.

There has always been something there when it comes to Hanamaki.

Maybe it was attraction, maybe it was not.

But you know you’re keenly aware of your gaze lingering on him the most during group settings—you did tell him you liked how his hair was the softest shade of pink, unprovocative and pretty. The kind of pink that lingered even as an afterthought at the edge of your vision, making you want to chase the color with your eyes even as he leaves.

His sweet gestures, charming smiles and the way he throws his head back—exposing the clear prominence of his neck does not go unnoticed by you. Though you’ve never actively sought anything romantic with him, he was a friend that you can practically tell anything and everything to. A friend that you can rely on in times of need, though kissing him was never an option that you thought was possible, yes, but even sitting here bathed in his familiar warmth and even familiar scent—there was never a fleeting thought of regret that overcame you at this very moment.

Never with Makki.

In fact, kissing him was sweet but also filled with giggles and grins that he cannot seem to wipe away from his face. It also does not help that Makki is extremely ticklish. Whenever he tries to pull you closer and you let your hands wander beneath his white shirt to touch the bare skin of his torso, he would react. Between pressed-lipped kisses, you would feel his soft mouth stretching into a smile, even a chuckle or two escaping him when you would run your thumbs on his side. It takes a lot within you not to match his energy, to let his giggles and tiny laughters influence you instead of peppering kisses all over him. But the next thing you know, you were both sharing soft laughters on the couch, with Hanamaki clutching his sides and soft, mumbled apologies leave his lips for interrupting the moment between you both.

He managed to make it up to you later by properly kissing you, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and pull you flushed against his warm body once again.

MATSUKAWA

Matsukawa to you has always been so easygoing in terms of mannerisms, with Hanamaki by his side to multiply their humor and teasing tenfold, the two of them were a sensational duo to be reckoned with. The best friends that people cannot help but smile and join along with their silly antics.

But when he’s alone and given the opportunity to finally, finally kiss you—the one that he has been obsessing over quietly for so long, he does not hold back or waste the tiny chance offered up to him on a silver platter. Matsukawa has been a tall person, probably the tallest you know but he’s prone to always leaning forward or bending a little to accompany you whenever you have something to tell him—a juicy gossip or a secret and it makes him look smaller, more inviting like he’s laid out a trap. Standing here now as he roughly pushes you flat against the wall, Matsukawa Issei has never made his height known to you until he’s suddenly towering.

He’s mean and demanding with his kisses, bruising in a way that it’s delicious and he feels all of you, memorizing your shape and warmth and every dip and slope with his large palms that’s riddled in tiny cold rings.

It’s lazy, the way he explores and conquers your curves before settling his hands on the back of your neck so you cannot escape him. Soft noises spill from your lips, and his murmurs between bated breaths rasp so perfectly in your ears—his torch-warmingly low voice that sends a shiver down the column of your spine. He leans back enough to press his forehead against yours and you’re tantalized by the shape and intensity of his sleepy gaze, it sweeps to revel your flush-stained cheeks, the plush of your lips, the flutter of your eyes. Reactions that he pulled from you.

You watch as he watches you, running his tongue along the front rows of his teeth.

you're easy to talk to, easy to spend time with without wondering when he ought to leave for his next stop on this seemingly long journey; not unlike other people he's met thus far, but in a way that has him attributing every aspect of mondstadt he has silently carried in his heart, in his heavy footsteps which drag further and further away from home, to you unlike any other familiar brush of wind or native flower he sees being sold by vendors.

for the first time since leaving mondstadt, he feels at home. even after his inevitable and almost reluctant departure onto the next nation, the feeling lingers in his heart. he thinks back to you often — how this flower would look nice with you, how you would enjoy this particular food, how you would think this sight is pretty or cool... how he thinks this journey would have been more fun if you were here with him.

he thinks you would like mondstadt, too. the freedom in the wind, the dandelion seeds which scatter through the air, the windwheel asters which give tell of the wind's direction, the cecilia which are the sturdiest and most resilient of flowers he knows, the high peaks of the cliffs closest to the rising and setting sun to the low tides of the water dampening the sand, and of course mondstadt city where freedom welcomes all, no matter who you are or where you come from.

varka thinks about you a lot, even if he doesn't realise he is doing so most of the time.

he ends up blabbing on and on about you to seamus over some freshly cooked skewers and a warmed pot of wine when he meets him later on. it's gotten to the point where the young traveller from nod-krai ends up saying, "maybe you should bring them along back to mondstadt, too, if you like them so much and still think about them."

to that, varka pauses mid-bite of his skewer and stares blankly at his newly acquired friend. "wait... i like them?"

seamus just sighs and goes back to sipping his warmed wine, wondering how the rugged young man from the nation of freedom survived this long without giving into the temptation of turning back and seeing you again.

(seamus finds it to be no surprise when they divert their journey away from mondstadt and towards your nation, even less so when varka seems to find you almost instantly and, in all his boyish charm and bashful mannerisms at seeing you again years later, asks if you would be willing to join them and visit his home.)

The tourney had transformed the fields beyond King’s Landing into a spectacle, where banners bearing the three-headed dragon snapped in the wind and the air carried the scents of grass, horseflesh, and roasting meat from the encampments beyond the lists. Pavilions in crimson and black lined the eastern rise as hedge knights polished helms beside highborn lords. 

The event had been declared in honor of visiting dignitaries from the Reach, yet no one failed to understand that it served another purpose as well, for a prince who stood so near the line of succession entered the lists so that men might measure him with their own eyes and carry word of what they saw back to their keeps.

Valarr understood that admiration, if it came, must be earned in plain view; for that reason, he approached the practice yard adjoining the main field with the same severity he brought to council chambers, intent upon sharpening his blade before the morrow’s melee and offering no one cause to whisper that dragon’s blood had thinned in him.

He just had not expected you to be there.

The rope that separated competitors from spectators had been laid, and the covered gallery beyond it offered shade for noble ladies who preferred distance from the violent clashing of steel. 

You ignored it entirely.

Instead, you stood at the very edge of the yard with your skirts gathered in one hand, speaking to Ser Donnel as though the ringing of blades were no more disruptive than a lively tune at supper. Morning light caught in your hair and along the pale silk at your shoulders, where a fastening of Targaryen red marked your betrothal. Several knights who ought to have been studying their footwork found their attention straying toward your smile.

Valarr told himself that your presence altered nothing. You stood well beyond the reach of stray strikes, guarded by men who would sooner bleed than allow harm near you.

Even so, when he lowered his helm and faced a Reach knight clad in green-enameled ivy, he felt the unwelcome pull of divided focus.

The first exchange rang clean, steel meeting steel in a manner Valarr had predicted, yet your unmistakable laughter drifted across the yard. 

For a fraction of a second his concentration faltered. 

The Reachman seized it, feinting left before turning sharply upward. The blow glanced off Valarr’s pauldron and scraped along his gorget, leaving a thin line of red.

It was not a serious wound. It was, however, witnessed.

You clapped at the spectacle.

The sound carried farther than it should have.

A few younger knights stiffened. Ser Donnel shifted uneasily. Valarr removed his helm with deliberate calm and handed it to his squire, whose hands betrayed what his prince would not. Then he crossed the churned earth toward you, mud dark against his boots, the faint line of blood vivid at his collar.

“I was not aware,” he said when he reached you, voice smooth but sharpened at the edges, “that today’s training required commentary.”

You tilted your head, as though considering the matter in earnest. “I would never presume to critique, Your Grace. I merely wished to discover whether my betrothed is as formidable as the realm insists.”

“The realm insists upon many things.”

“Yes,” you agreed lightly. “I have been told you are unrivaled with a blade, that no man living could best you unless fortune intervened. One hears it so often that it begins to sound less like admiration and more like a legend.”

His gaze sharpened, though his posture did not change. “A legend.”

“I only mean,” you continued, softening your tone as though sharing a private thought rather than issuing a challenge, “that men are sometimes inclined to polish a story when it concerns a prince who stands so near the throne. It would be awkward, after all, to admit that he is simply very good, rather than untouchable.”

No one nearby pretended deafness.

Valarr had endured flattery and envy since childhood, yet no one had suggested to his face that his reputation might rest upon rank rather than merit. What unsettled him most was the lack of cruelty in your voice. You were unabashedly measuring him.

“You suspect my skill is a courtesy,” he said evenly.

“I suspect I would prefer to see it proven,” you replied. “I would not wish to marry a legend and discover I had been promised a rumor.”

An unfamiliar heat swiftly rose beneath his composure. He had entered the yard intent on satisfying watching lords whose approval would lead into alliances.

Now he found himself wanting to satisfy you. 

He turned back toward the field. “Ser Alester,” he called.

The Reach knight hesitated. “Your Grace, we have already—”

“You will continue.”

The second bout began without flourish. Valarr advanced with measured precision, parrying with economical force, pressing his opponent back step by deliberate step. There was no wasted movement now. The ivy-etched blade wavered. With a clean twist of his wrist, Valarr disarmed him. 

A murmur rose. Valarr did not acknowledge it.

Another knight stepped forward, courage stirred. Valarr met him with the same relentless clarity. The exchange lasted longer, sweat gathering beneath his armour. When it ended, the second opponent knelt, weapon gone, dignity intact but defeat undeniable.

Applause rolled from the edges of the yard. Valarr removed his helm again and sought you immediately.

Mud streaked him. The shallow cut at his collar had deepened slightly. Yet he stood before you composed, gaze intent.

“Well?” he asked.

You stepped closer to the rope, studying him without mockery now. “It seems the realm is not entirely generous in its praise.”

“Not entirely?” One brow lifted.

“I reserve judgment pending further evidence,” you replied, though admiration softened your tone. “It would be careless to conclude after only two demonstrations.”

A faint smile touched his mouth before he could prevent it.

“You wished to see whether I was as skilled as they claim,” he said quietly. “Take care with your tests. I am not accustomed to failing them.”

“And if you do?” you asked, light but watchful.

He straightened, lineage settling over him like armor, yet his gaze remained fixed on yours.

“I do not fail,” he answered. “Not where it concerns what is mine to defend.”

And though his composure remained intact, it no longer belonged solely to him. It had been moved, subtly and irrevocably, by the simple fact that your opinion mattered more than the roar of the crowd.

You are a cruel woman, Valarr decides.

A cruel, beguiling woman sent to torment him.

The feast had been arranged in the great hall of the Red Keep splendor.

Valarr endured such evenings with the same restraint he brought to combat, for he understood that feasts were battlefields of another sort. He had long ago schooled his expression into courteous attentiveness, permitting neither boredom nor irritation to show, because princes who displayed too much feeling invited speculation.

He had not anticipated jealousy.

The lordling in question was scarcely worthy of notice, being a second son from a modest house sworn to a greater Reach lord, and he possessed the unfortunate combination of too much wine and too little discernment.

From across the hall, Valarr observed him lean toward you with an eagerness that would have been comical had it not unsettled something uncomfortably sharp beneath his ribs. You sat among the ladies of the court in a gown of pale blue that caught the firelight at every fold, listening with polite interest as the young man recounted some hunting exploit whose details grew more elaborate with each refill of his cup.

You were not behaving improperly, nor did your laughter carry any note of invitation beyond your natural warmth, yet when your fingers brushed the lordling’s sleeve in an absent gesture of emphasis, Valarr felt an unwelcome tightening in his chest that refused to be reasoned away.

He told himself that nothing in the exchange warranted intervention, that you were entitled to harmless conversation, and that his own reaction was disproportionate to the cause; nevertheless, the sight of the man leaning closer, encouraged by your easy attentiveness, stirred an agitation that bore little resemblance to the disciplined composure he prized.

Harmless, he informed himself.

The word did not settle.

What unsettled him most was not the lordling’s boldness, something that you remained unaware of the effect you produced. You met attention with brightness, and men, mistaking kindness for invitation, interpreted what was freely given as something meant for them alone. The prince was willing to admit he had fallen victim of this.

Valarr watched the way the lordling’s gaze lingered at your throat, the way he angled his body to claim more of your notice, and he discovered, with faint astonishment, that no amount of reason could offer relief against the tide of irritation rising within him.

This woman, he thought with exasperation that bordered upon incredulity, is a trial sent expressly to test my restraint.

He rose.

The scrape of his chair against stone carried farther than he intended, drawing the attention of those seated nearby, yet he did not soften the sound, for something in him had decided that quiet tolerance would only prolong his discomfort. He crossed the length of the hall with unhurried steps, acknowledging greetings with minimal inclination of the head, until he reached the place where you sat.

“My lord,” Valarr drawled, coming to stand behind the young man’s chair, one hand settling upon it with idle deliberation, “you seem to have mistaken your surroundings.”

The lordling blinked up at him, color draining from cheeks already flushed with wine. “Your Grace?”

“Yes,” Valarr said mildly. “You appear to be speaking to my betrothed as though she were a seasonal fair prize.”

The hall’s hum dimmed perceptibly.

You turned toward him, surprise flickering across your features. “Valarr—”

“She is not unclaimed,” he continued, tone smooth but eyes sharp. “Nor is she in want of your admiration. I assure you, she is sufficiently supplied.”

The lordling stammered apologies, nearly upsetting his cup in his haste to rise and retreat, and several nearby ladies exchanged glances that mingled amusement with curiosity. Valarr inclined his head just enough to acknowledge the apology, then remained where he stood until the young man had put a respectable distance between himself and your seat.

When the noise of the hall cautiously resumed, you faced him fully, sunshine incarnate despite the storm cloud looming over you.

“That was unnecessary,” you said in a tone pitched low enough to avoid further spectacle.

“Was it?” he replied, and although his voice retained its courtly moderation, his jaw remained set more firmly than custom demanded. “I thought I had discovered a stray hound circling the table in hopes of scraps.”

Your brows lifted. “A hound?”

“Yes. Eager. Underfed in discernment.” His gaze flicked pointedly toward the retreating figure. “Uncertain where it is permitted to sniff.”

You choked on a laugh. “You cannot possibly be comparing him to a dog.”

“I can,” Valarr said. “And I find the comparison charitable.”

“You are dreadful!"

“Am I wrong?” Valarr asked, lowering his voice as he met your gaze. “He was appraising.”

“And that somehow offends you?”

“It does when he acts like a fool at market deciding whether the mare before him might carry his colors."

“I am not a mare.”

“No,” he agreed, gaze sliding over you in a way that was distinctly not courtly. “You are considerably more trouble.”

Your smile only widened. “You are jealous.”

“I am inconvenienced,” he said at once.

“By what?”

“By the persistence of lesser sons who mistake your brightness as an invitation.”

“I was simply being polite.”

“Yes,” he said darkly. “You are always polite. That is the problem.”

You stepped closer, unfazed by the tension coiled in him. “You dislike that I smiled at him.”

“I dislike that he believed he earned it.”

You tilted your head, sunlight to his shade. “And what should I do? Scowl at every man who speaks to me?”

“It would save me time,” he muttered.

You laughed outright at that.

“You,” he said, leaning slightly closer, voice lowering into something rougher at the edges, “are entirely too pleased with yourself.”

Your expression softened, not surrendering, never that, but warming. “I did wonder how long you would tolerate it.”

He huffed a quiet breath. “You test me.”

“And you glare so beautifully when provoked.”

“That is not a compliment.”

“It is to me.”

He looked at you then, properly looked, and some of the sharpness dulled into reluctant affection. “You are insufferably cheerful about this.”

“I find it charming,” you replied sweetly, “that a prince who can face down seasoned knights is undone by a second son with too much wine.”

“I am not undone.”

“You compared him to a stray hound.”

A pause.

“He was sniffing,” Valarr muttered.

Your laughter rang bright enough to turn heads again, and this time he did not step away from it. Instead he moved to your side of his own accord, close enough that no one could mistake his position.

“If another hound approaches,” you whispered conspiratorially, “shall I fetch you at once?”

His jaw flexed, but there was no mistaking the heat beneath it now. “If another approaches,” he said, low and dry, “I shall assume you have taken to scattering crumbs.”

You gasped in mock offense.

He leaned nearer still, voice dropping just for you. “Do not look so delighted. I am serious.”

“I know,” you said, beaming up at him.

This woman, he thought again, not without a trace of reluctant admiration, unsettles me beyond reason.

Throughout the remainder of the evening, he did not stray far, and though he told himself that vigilance was prudent given the eyes upon you, he could not deny that he remained because he wished to, because the agitation you inspired was preferable to the calm he had was used to.

You are far more cunning than anyone gave you credit for.

Valarr had been told by his father that you were well-born and clever, but he had not anticipated a mind that could rival a king’s own.

A flicker of curiosity passed over him as he watched you—how easily you weighed each possibility, measured each risk. There was precision in your movements, a confidence that suggested this was more than a simple pastime. He realized then that the mind behind those calculating eyes was already several steps ahead, shaping the play before it began.

By the time you leaned back in your chair and studied the board with that dangerous gleam, the game had already drawn an audience. Amber light filtered through the latticework windows of the solar and caught along the carved cyvasse pieces.

Valarr’s posture remained composed, his expression unreadable. Yet he had begun to understand that the true threat was not on the board. You had pressed him for hours, each move placed lightly, almost playfully, while his defenses narrowed in ways that felt inevitable.

The maids lingered without shame now, pretending to tidy what had long since been set in order. Two young knights hovered near the doorway while watching their prince lose ground one square at a time.

Just as he adjusted his formation in an attempt to regain control, you rested your chin on your folded hands and suggested, with airy curiosity, that the match might benefit from stakes.

He looked up at once. “Stakes,” he repeated carefully.

“A modest wager,” you said. “If I win, you grant me a gift.”

“And if you lose?” he asked.

You examined the board with exaggerated seriousness. “Then I will declare before all present that Your Highness is indisputably superior in both strategy and intellect.”

A few of the maids failed to conceal their amusement.

He studied you instead of the pieces. Jewels would mean nothing to you. Lands would be redundant. He wondered what you believed he might give.

“You sound very sure of yourself,” he said.

“I am optimistic,” you replied, which told him nothing.

He accepted the wager. Refusal would look like doubt, and he would not give the room that satisfaction.

The game resumed, and Valarr advanced with bold intent, pressing hard. You brightened at the change, as though this was what you had wanted all along.

When the end came, it arrived shockingly. His king stood encircled. There was no honorable path left open.

You did not announce it at once. Instead you traced the line of his entrapment with one finger, guiding his eye through the careful design of his defeat before lifting your gaze to his.

“Shall I demonstrate,” you asked softly, “or does the prince concede?”

The room stilled.

Valarr inclined his head. “I concede.”

The maids exhaled in poorly disguised triumph. One of the knights muttered something in shock. You ignored them all and leaned forward instead, close enough that he caught the faint scent of citrus at your wrist.

“My gift,” you reminded him gently.

He folded his hands on the table to keep them steady. “Name it,” he said, confident that whatever you asked could be granted without lasting consequence.

You tilted your head and regarded him as though he were the puzzle now.

“What does a lady who has everything desire?” you mused.

“I would think she lacks nothing,” he answered.

Your smile shifted, softer but far more certain. “On the contrary. There is one thing I have not yet received.”

The air in the room thinned.

“And what is that?”

You did not hesitate. “A kiss.”

The word landed cleanly. The maids gasped outright.

Valarr went very still. He had negotiated disputes between proud lords without faltering. He had faced seasoned knights in the yard and foreign envoys across council tables. None of it had prepared him for this.

Heat rose unmistakably along his cheekbones. It betrayed him at once.

“You ask boldly,” he said, and the effort required to keep his voice steady surpassed any maneuver he had attempted that afternoon.

“And you agreed freely,” you replied, eyes bright. “Would you deny me what I won?”

He rose. He offered you his hand. When you stood before him, the board forgotten between you, he hesitated only briefly before bending.

The kiss he placed on your cheek was proper and it should have been enough.

You turned your face at the last instant, so that his lips brushed the corner of your mouth instead. The contact was fleeting, but it sent a visible tremor through him. The flush deepened.

You stepped back with perfect composure and a curtsy that concealed nothing in your eyes.

“My prince,” you said sweetly, “you honor your debts.”

He remained standing there a moment too long. The warmth lingered where your skin had met his. He was aware of every gaze in the room, and more aware of the fact that he did not regret it.

The solar dissolved into whispers. He dismissed them with a single look, until the chamber emptied. Still, your laughter echoed in his mind long after the door closed.

He stood beside the abandoned board, fingers resting where yours had been. The wood felt cool beneath his touch. His lips did not.

When he finally stepped into the corridor, he lifted his hand to his mouth without thinking. The heat returned instantly. He exhaled, half exasperated, half astonished.

He had lost a game.

And he had never been more certain that he wished to lose to you again.

Like a seasoned duelist, Valarr knew precisely when to bide his time—and when to strike. He found his moment on one fateful night. Chivalry be damned; his patience had frayed, and he could no longer endure being outmaneuvered. He was, quite simply, a sore loser.

The rain had begun before dusk and had shown no intention of relenting, descending in silver veils that blurred the city below the Red Keep and turned the torchlit courtyards into wavering pools of reflected flame. Within the great hall, however, the storm only heightened the intimacy of the evening’s gathering, for the windows rattled softly against the wind while braziers burned hotter than usual.

Lords who might otherwise have dispersed to private amusements remained clustered beneath vaulted arches, and the ladies of the court displayed their accomplishments with renewed enthusiasm, as though artistry could rival thunder.

You moved easily among them, radiant in a gown the color of summer wheat, pausing to admire a length of Myrish lace or to inquire after a melody newly learned upon the harp. Your presence altered the atmosphere of any circle you joined, and Valarr, who had stationed himself near one of the tall windows overlooking the rain-swept yard, found his gaze returning to you with a frequency that bordered upon mania.

He had grown accustomed to your teasing, to the bright tilt of your head and the deliberate boldness with which you tested his restraint, and though he would not have admitted it aloud, he had begun to anticipate those exchanges with something perilously close to eagerness.

It occurred to him, as lightning flashed faintly beyond the glass, that he had never once unsettled you in return.

The opportunity presented itself when Lady Mertha of the Westerlands, a young woman possessed of remarkable skill with a needle, approached the prince to present a length of embroidery she had recently completed for the sept. The piece depicted the Mother in soft gold thread, her expression rendered with delicate precision, and several courtiers gathered close to admire the workmanship.

“It is exquisite, my lady,” Valarr said, allowing genuine appreciation to color his tone as he traced the air just above the stitched pattern without touching it. “The balance of color suggests both discipline and imagination, which rarely coexist so harmoniously.”

Lady Mertha flushed with pleased surprise, and those nearby murmured agreement.

You had drawn near at some point during his remarks, and although your posture remained perfectly composed, your hand stilled where it rested upon the back of a chair. The faintest tightening appeared at the corner of your mouth, subtle enough that none but someone studying you intently would have marked it, yet Valarr saw it with startling clarity.

He continued, aware of the experiment unfolding even as he conducted it. “The realm is fortunate to foster such talents," he added, inclining his head toward Lady Mertha.

The words were courteous, appropriate, even deserved; nevertheless, he felt the precise moment your composure shifted, as though a current had altered direction beneath calm water. You stepped forward then, offering your own compliment to the lady with gracious warmth, yet there was an undercurrent in your voice that had not been present earlier.

Valarr experienced, to his quiet astonishment, a flicker of satisfaction.

The remainder of the evening unfolded without overt incident, yet he did not fail to notice that you did not once glance toward him.

When at last the gathering began to disperse, he excused himself from a lingering conversation and followed the corridor that led toward the smaller gallery overlooking the inner gardens.

He found you there, standing beneath a covered archway where vines clung to stone darkened by moisture, watching the rain bead upon the leaves below. The torches set in iron brackets cast a warm glow across your profile, illuminating the thoughtful set of your expression.

“You abandoned the hall early,” he observed, coming to stand beside you without intruding upon your space.

“I feared I might distract from Lady Mertha's triumph,” you replied, your tone pleasantly neutral. “Her embroidery appeared to command your full attention.”

He allowed a moment to pass before answering, studying the way you kept your gaze fixed upon the garden rather than on him. “It would seem,” he said at last, “that the lark possesses claws after all.”

You turned then, eyes narrowing slightly as comprehension dawned. “You were provoking me.”

The faint curve of his mouth did not quite soften the deliberateness of his reply. “I was only observing.”

“Observing what?”

“How it feels,” he said, meeting your gaze with unflinching steadiness, “to watch another command what one considers one’s own.”

The honesty of the admission drew a subtle shift in your posture, surprise mingling with reluctant understanding. “You compared embroidery to me?”

“I compared admiration to admiration,” he corrected. “You have long delighted in testing my composure before others. I found myself curious whether yours was equally resilient.”

“And was it?” you asked, lifting your chin in familiar challenge.

He considered you carefully before responding. “Not entirely.”

A silence settled between you. The rain traced soft patterns upon stone beyond the archway, and somewhere distant a servant’s footsteps echoed along the corridor.

“You could have simply asked,” you said after a moment. “I would have told you that I dislike being reminded you have choices.”

“I have always known I have choices,” he replied. “What I wished to know was whether you disliked that knowledge.”

You drew a slow breath, as though steadying yourself. “I do not enjoy imagining that another woman might capture your interest.”

“Oh, there was no capture,” he said, and though his voice remained composed, it carried an undercurrent of intensity. “There was only demonstration that you are not the only one capable of unsettling another.”

The candor of that statement sent a faint warmth across your cheeks, and he felt again that unexpected satisfaction, though it was tempered now with something gentler.

He had not intended cruelty, nor had he wished to wound you; he had only sought to understand the sensation you so frequently inspired in him, that sharp awareness of wanting and guarding and proving.

“You test me, and I endure it because I enjoy the trial. I wondered whether you would endure the same.”

“And if I had not?”

His gaze lingered upon you with deliberate care. “Then I would have ceased.”

The simplicity of that assurance unraveled the last of your defensiveness. You studied him in the torchlight, seeing perhaps for the first time the deliberate choice behind his composure, the way he wielded restraint not as shield but as instrument.

“You wished to know how it feels,” you said quietly.

“Yes.”

“And?”

He allowed himself the smallest concession of vulnerability. “It is inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient,” you repeated, a smile threatening despite your efforts.

“It disrupts thought,” he elaborated. “It renders measured judgment… less reliable.”

“You mean it makes you jealous.”

He inclined his head, neither denying nor embellishing the truth. “It appears so.”

A laugh escaped you then, lighter than before but tinged with something more intimate. “You could have spared Lady Mertha the experiment.”

“She benefited from honest praise,” he replied. “The embroidery was indeed accomplished.”

“And I?” you pressed.

“You,” he said, stepping a fraction closer, though still leaving space for retreat, “remain the only person whose composure I have any desire to disturb.”

You searched his expression as though weighing the sincerity of his intent, then allowed your hand to brush lightly against his sleeve.

“You have learned quickly,” you murmured.

“I have had an attentive instructor,” he returned.

Valarr had discovered that he could unsettle you, that beneath your brightness lay a possessiveness not unlike his own, and rather than diminishing his regard, the knowledge deepened it.

And though he told himself that such experiments should be conducted sparingly, he could not deny that the sight of you momentarily undone by his design lingered in his thoughts with a sweetness he had not expected, nor entirely resisted.

He declined the chair with a dismissive flick of his hand, pacing instead before the hearth as though the fire might offer counsel.

“He has refused to attend the tourney at Bitterbridge,” Maekar said, irritation threading through every syllable.

You paused only briefly, though your thoughts moved swiftly. Bitterbridge had not been quiet of late; grain levies had tightened, rumors of hoarding had begun to circulate, and lesser lords who resented the crown’s interference had nevertheless grown loud in their demands for royal relief whenever their smallfolk turned restless. A progress to the Reach would not be undertaken for leisure, nor even for spectacle alone, but as deliberate theater of the Iron Throne's presence.

“I suppose my dear husband considers disputes over grain beneath his notice,” you murmured, retrieving your embroidery needle and aligning it with deliberate care.

Maekar snorted, though whether at your assessment or at Aerion himself remained unclear. “Thank fuck someone in this cursed family has sense."

You allowed yourself a small smile. “If you have come to enlist me as emissary, I fear you misjudge the difficulty. Aerion would sooner invite open rebellion than permit me to depart his sight for a fortnight.”

“Yes,” Maekar replied darkly, “that appears to be the fucking problem.”

The bluntness might have scandalized another daughter-in-law; you merely folded your hands in your lap and regarded him with patient attention. For all his severity, Maekar did not waste his visits on trivialities.

“He refuses on what grounds?” you asked.

“He claims the Reach is quiet enough without our presence,” Maekar said, voice tightening. “He insists that to answer every minor grievance with a dragon’s shadow is to encourage further complaint.”

You could almost hear your husband’s voice.

“However,” you ventured, “a prince’s attendance would remind those same lords that their harvest depends upon the stability of the crown.”

Maekar stopped pacing and looked at you fully then, his gaze sharp but not unkind. “Precisely.”

You set the hoop aside altogether now, giving him your undivided attention.

“I wish my son to understand that ruling requires more than posturing,” Maekar replied. “The smallfolk grow anxious, which breeds discontent.”

“And Aerion’s absence,” you concluded softly, “might be interpreted as indifference.”

Maekar’s silence confirmed it.

You knew your husband’s tempers, his pride, the peculiar intensity with which he guarded what he deemed his own. You also knew the quieter truths few others witnessed: the way his restlessness eased at your touch, the rare unguarded smile reserved solely for you, the impatience that melted into something almost boyish when you praised him.

You said at last, “ You hope that my presence will render the journey tolerable.”

Maekar’s mouth twitched, almost conceding humor. “I hope your presence will make refusal impossible.”

You laughed softly at that. “Father, you attribute to me a power I do not claim.”

“Do not pretend modesty,” he countered. “He listens to no man at this court without calculating advantage, yet the fool listens to you.”

You rose and crossed to the window, gazing out across Summerhall’s rolling grounds where banners stirred in the mild breeze. Somewhere within those halls your husband would be engaged in some private irritation, convinced that the world misunderstood him.

“The Reach will receive a prince more favorably if he arrives with his princess beside him. Let them see that he can be… tempered.”

The word hung between you.

To tame a dragon was to risk being burned; to refuse was to risk letting it devour the fields unchecked.

“And if he refuses even then?” you asked quietly.

Maekar met your gaze without flinching. “Oh I can assure you that he will not.”

You arched a brow.

“He would rather march into a nest of vipers,” Maekar said dryly, “than admit before you that he shirks responsibility.”

A reluctant smile curved your lips. That, at least, rang true.

“Very well,” you said, returning to your embroidery only long enough to secure the final stitch in the dragon’s wing. “I shall speak with my husband.”

Maekar inclined his head, relief masked as gruff approval. “Convince him,” he said simply.

As he turned to depart, you added lightly, “You understand, of course, that if he agrees, he will insist I remain within arm’s reach at all times.”

Maekar paused at the threshold. “If that is the price” he replied, “the realm can endure it.”

“Sister!”

The brightly unfiltered cry preceded him down the corridor, and a moment later Aegon flung himself toward you with all the enthusiasm of youth, his hands fastening into the folds of your skirts.

“Yes, my love?” you asked, laughter threading softly through your voice as you steadied him with a hand upon his hair, smoothing back the unruly silver-gold strands.

He tipped his face upward, solemnity attempting to replace excitement and failing entirely. “Is it true,” he demanded in a whisper far too loud to be conspiratorial, “that Aerion has refused to go to the Reach because he says it is dull?”

You arched a brow. “Your brother does not find anything dull,” you replied mildly. “He merely prefers his spectacles grand.”

Egg huffed, the sound caught somewhere between indignation and admiration. “Will you make him go?” he asked at last.

There was no mockery in the question; to him it was simply the most practical solution available. If Aerion resisted the realm, the realm would send you.

“I will speak with him,” you said.

“That means yes,” Egg replied immediately, relief blooming across his features. “He always listens when you speak.”

“Always?” you teased.

“He pretends he does not,” the boy insisted, tightening his grip upon your skirts as though afraid you might deny it. “He argues and frowns and says dreadful things about peasants and banners, but then he does what you suggested as if it were his idea all along.”

You laughed then, unable to help it. "Really, now?"

Egg said, straightening with exaggerated seriousness. “Someone must know how to handle him.”

“And you believe it is I?”

“You are the only one who does,” he replied, the certainty in his tone unshaken. “When he is angry, he looks for you. When he wins, he looks for you. When he is bored, he comes to you. He does not even realize he does it.”

The simplicity of the observation struck more keenly than Egg could have intended.

You brushed an errant curl from his forehead. “Your brother is not so easily managed as you imagine.”

“Well, I did not say managed,” Egg corrected, with a dignity he had likely borrowed from some half-remembered lecture. “I said handled.”

The distinction drew a quieter smile from you.

“He frightens the court,” Egg continued, lowering his voice again. “And he frightens me. But he never frightens you.”

You considered that carefully before answering. “He would not wish to.”

Egg’s expression shifted at that, comprehension dawning in a way that was almost painful in its innocence. “He loves you,” he said plainly, as though remarking upon the weather.

You did not deny it.

“He is devoted,” you replied, choosing your language with care.

“That is the same thing,” Egg insisted, though his brows drew together in thought. “Is it not?”

“It can be,” you said, smoothing the crease from his brow with your thumb. “Provided devotion does not forget the world beyond itself.”

He absorbed that with visible effort before a fresh frustration seized him.

“I want to go,” he blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush. “To Bitterbridge. I told Father I could serve as squire, or carry a banner, or do anything at all, but he says I am not to leave unless my brothers enter the lists.”

“And do they intend to?” you asked gently.

Egg scowled in a manner that suggested he had already received an answer. “Aerion says the lists are beneath him unless the prize is worthy. Aemon says he has no desire to break bones for applause. And Father says that if they will not ride, then neither shall I.”

You regarded him with sympathetic gravity. “Your father wishes to keep you from unnecessary danger.”

“I am not afraid,” he insisted.

“I know,” you said softly. “That is precisely why he is.”

The indignation faltered, replaced by reluctant understanding.

“If Aerion goes,” Egg pressed, returning to his earlier certainty, “and if you go, then Father will have no reason to keep me here. He said I may attend only if my brothers do. So you must convince him as well.”

The scope of the task did not seem to daunt him in the slightest.

“You ask much of me,” you murmured.

“You always make it so," he replied without hesitation. Your heart clenches.

As he darted away at the summons of some distant voice, leaving your skirts at last unclaimed, you remained in the corridor a moment longer, reflecting upon the curious position you occupied within this family.

Aerion is already in your bedchambers by the time you arrive, his face illuminated by the flickering gold of oil-fed flames.

Your husband stands at the edge of the hearth when you enter, one hand braced against the carved mantle as though steadying himself against some irritation that has followed him from council. He does not turn immediately, yet the subtle straightening of his shoulders betrays awareness long before your reflection reaches him in the glass.

“You have that look,” he says, watching you through the mirror rather than directly.

You close the door softly. The gown you wear is one he favors, a fluid red silk that clings without ostentation, thin enough that the heat of the chamber renders it almost indecent.

“What look?” you ask, fingers moving to unpin your hair, letting it fall in a heavy cascade over your shoulders and down your back.

His gaze darkens at the motion despite himself, lingering not politely but thoroughly.

“I know my family sent you. They should know better,” he replies, turning at last. “It implies I may be persuaded.”

“You may be,” you say, stepping farther into the room, candlelight tracing the line of your collarbone and catching in the hollow of your throat.

He studies you in silence, the pull in his expression no longer disguised. He looks as a man starved.

“Maekar grows impatient,” you continue, stopping just within his reach. “The Reach wishes reassurance.”

“The lowborn desire a spectacle,” he says dismissively, though his hand has already found your waist, thumb pressing into silk as if confirming you are real and not some conjured temptation. His grip is firm, almost bruising, yet you lean into it rather than away. “They call for dragons when it is convenient and curse them when not.”

“And you would deny them both?” you ask softly.

His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly, bunching the fabric at your hip. “I would deny them the illusion that I perform at their whim.”

You lift your hand to his chest, feeling the steady, contained force beneath linen and skin—the heat of your husband constant. Your palm slides lower, slow and deliberate, until your fingers curl lightly at his belt.

“You command,” you murmur, gaze never leaving his. “You always have.”

His breath shifts.

“They want you seen,” you continue, your thumb tracing the faint rise of his collarbone before drifting to the edge of his jaw. “Not hidden in these halls.”

He draws you closer in a single decisive motion, your body colliding with his, the impact enough to steal the space between your words. One hand remains at your waist; the other comes up to your throat, not choking, merely resting there—a possessive reminder of strength. You do not flinch. Instead, you tilt your chin slightly, inviting.

“And you were not made to be paraded before men who forget themselves,” he says, voice low, controlled, though the hand at your throat tightens just enough to feel.

“They will look regardless,” you reply, your hands sliding upward into his hair, fingers threading through silver strands with slow familiarity. You tug, not enough to hurt, only enough to make him feel it. “At least this way, they will see where I stand.”

His mouth hardens.

“I would sooner gouge out the eyes of every hedge knight and fishmonger who dares stare,” he mutters, disgust curling through the words. “Let them glimpse a dragon’s hoard and think themselves worthy of it.”

His gaze drags slowly over you again, possessive and unapologetic. “They do not deserve to look at you.”

His eyes close briefly at the contact of your hands, composure thinning in a way few ever witness. A faint exhale escapes him when you press closer, the silk between you a poor barrier against heat.

“Beside me,” he says, almost to himself.

“Where else?”

He searches your face then, as though reconciling the prince he presents to the world with the woman who knows precisely how to undo him. “They believe you temper me,” he says quietly.

You tilt your head, brushing your lips along the line of his jaw, lingering just long enough to feel the pulse beneath his skin. “Perhaps I only remind you of what you are capable of.”

A low sound escapes him, less laughter than surrender. His hand slides from your throat to your back, fingers spanning wide, pulling you flush against him so there is no doubt of his want.

“If I go,” he says, voice roughened now by proximity rather than anger, “you will remain within my sight. I will not have you wandering those pavilions while half the Reach imagines futures that do not belong to them.”

“I have no interest in futures that do not belong to us,” you reply, your lips grazing the corner of his mouth before you allow him the full kiss.

The word lingers between you.

His hand drifts lower, settling at the curve of your hip, thumb tracing slow, possessive patterns through silk. “You would endure the journey,” he says, though his mouth has found the line of your neck, heat trailing in its wake.

“I would endure far worse,” you murmur, your head tipping back to grant him better access, fingers tightening in his hair when his teeth scrape lightly against your skin. You were made to handle him—to meet heat with heat.

“They sent you because they know,” he says at last, lifting his head though he does not release you. “Because they see that I listen.”

“You do not listen,” you correct gently, your hand sliding between you, flattening over his heart once more. “You choose.”

A faint smile ghosts across his mouth, though his eyes burn brighter for it.

“And what do I choose now?” he asks.

“You choose to ride south not because they demand it,” you say, your lips brushing his again, slower this time, deeper. “You choose because you wish to be seen—and because you know I will be there.”

He holds your gaze for a long breath, and in it is something rawer than pride: it is needy.

“Fine,” he says finally, the admission stripped bare.

Your hand curves against his cheek, drawing him down until your lips claim his properly this time. The kiss deepens without hurry, his grip tightening at your back as though the world beyond these walls has already begun to recede. When he lifts you slightly, just enough that your feet barely brush the floor, you do not protest.

When you finally pull back, his gaze has softened in a way the court will never witness.

“Bitterbridge, then,” he murmurs against your mouth, decision settling with quiet inevitability. “We ride within the week.”

You allow a small, satisfied smile, your thumb still tracing slow circles over his skin as though sealing the bargain.

“Let them look,” you say softly.

His arms tighten around you, rough and reverent all at once.

“They will,” he replies, voice low and certain. “And they will understand precisely why I came.”

he laughs, nose crinkling in that sexy way you definitely haven’t thought about every day for the past 3 months. you’re barely given time to respond before a tattooed hand reaches forward and plucks the cup from your clammy hand, downing the last of whatever cheap liquor you were too nervous to finish anyway.

you watch, awestruck like a deer in headlights. taking in the way his throat bobs when he swallows. how he wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb, sucking a stray drop of from the pad of his thumb.

“fuck, you drink fireball? didn’t think you’d be the type.” he jests.

was he flirting with you?

sukuna chucks the cup somewhere to the side. probably somewhere near a garbage can. not that you can tell with how many people are crowding the kitchen.

“so.” sukuna says, looking back at you expectantly, “we have senior seminar together, yeah?” he smiles, head tilting to the side like he’s trying to get a read on you.

right, the class he couldn’t care less about. you’ve seen him look up from his phone and engage with the topic, what, maybe twice? it’s a miracle he even recognizes you.

“i remember you, don’t worry.” you laugh, leaning back and forth on the balls of your feet as you desperately rack your brain for a way to keep the conversation going.

of course you remember him. you sit next to each other. you’ve scrolled marathons through his instagram page in the privacy of your room. hell, you’ve spent so much time thinking about him that you’d probably be able to pick his biceps out of a lineup. “remember” doesn’t begin to describe it.

sukuna speaks up again, mouth curling at the side like he’s got something up his sleeve. he gives you a quick once over, arms crossed over his chest casually.

“you look good tonight. enjoying yourself?” he’s not subtle in the slightest, red eyes scanning your figure, committing every inch of you to memory. the thought alone feels filthy. like tree sap settling in the pit of your stomach.

you must’ve unknowingly done something worthy of sainthood this semester. that’s the only explanation as to why the campus frat legend is eyeing you like he wants to eat you alive and lick his fingers clean after.

you don’t even care that he’s probably pulling out the same five tricks he’d use on any other girl. you’re falling faster than you ever have.

you make a mental note to thank shoko profusely for convincing you to socialize tonight. she’d given it to you straight like always, something about being tired of you complaining about your glaring lack of a roster. encouraging you to maybe go out and actually fuck a guy instead of settling for getting fingered by some loser like you always did.

senior year was supposed to be memorable after all.

“do you even know my name?” you mumble shyly, fiddling with the hem of your shirt.

sukuna pretends to rack his mind for an answer. tongue pressed against his cheek in a way that makes your breath catch.

your name rolls of his tongue beautifully, punctuated with that fangy smile you’ve daydreamed about. he says it like he’s recited it a million times. like the very existence of you on his tongue is second nature.

wow. ok. you might’ve misjudged his attention to detail.

sukuna must notice the surprised look on your face because he leans in a little closer. just enough for you to feel the heat radiating off his body.

“are you gonna answer my question?” he asks you.

right, if you were enjoying yourself. you try to think of something witty to say, painful aware of how intently he’s looking at you. the attention feels so sudden. he was never this forward in class, why come up to you now?

sukuna’s eyes never leave your face, watching, craving.

“honestly? yeah, i’m having a great time.” you settle for some simple honesty. somewhere in the background the incessant thump of a bluetooth speaker fades the more the scent of his cologne fills your lungs.

“what about you?” you ask.

sukuna pauses, eyes flitting over the crowd like he’s debating whether or not he can actually say what’s really on his mind.

his jaw flexes, fingers drumming against the counter to the beat of whatever song is playing.

he looks back over at you when he finally makes up his mind, gauging your reaction with a sly look in his eyes. thank god he can’t physically see the way your core flutters around nothing. you’re already too conscious of the sticky flush collecting in the gusset of your panties.

“i mean..." there's a playful tilt to his voice, his words steeped in mischief.

"usually i’d be upstairs by now having some fun.”

sukuna sighs, eyes glued to the swell of your lips.

“but, y’know, i get it. with finals week coming up. not a lot of fun to be had if no one else is looking for it.”

his voice trails off as soon as his eyes lock onto your lips. mumbling the last bits of the sentence like his mind is elsewhere. wanting.

something hangs heavy in the air between the two of you, something he hasn't said directly just yet.

fun. the implication of the word isn’t lost on you in the slightest. sukuna was a decent guy all around, maybe even an acquaintance now, but you’ve heard the way girls talk about him around campus.

lack of experience aside, you’d have to be an idiot to fool around with a guy like him. one that treats college like a fuckfest and sweet talks anything with a pulse. did you really want ryomen sukuna of all people to be your first?

“i can be fun.”

maybe you are an idiot after all. because the speed those four words leave you is absolutely unparalleled.

in your defense, you can barely think straight as is. not with how close he is to you now, mouth curling up into the tiniest smile. and especially not with how satisfied he looks with himself.

“yeah?” sukuna’s pupils are two black voids, waiting for you to confirm your little unspoken agreement.

suddenly everything you’re feeling in your lower half makes sense, because the intrigue in his voice is something you’d literally pay money to hear again. you needed him bad.

“wanna find out?” you ask, more confident this time. technically not a bogus offer. you’ve done almost everything leading up to the deed. how hard could going all the way be?

—

sukuna’s room is a world of its own. tucked just upstairs and to the left of the beer can littered stairwell he’d made a beeline for as soon as you'd given him the green light. he weaves the both of you through the dwindling crowd, hand around your waist like you belong to him. in a way, you already do.

it's like the world around you ceases to exist as soon as his door locks and your back hits his bed. you're hyperaware and not aware of anything all at the same time. honed in on the way he toes his sneakers off and clambers onto the mattress atop you, hands running up the length of your body before diving to claim your lips.

you've made out before, sure, but never quite like this. never so passionately, in the way that makes your thighs clench and your core shake. sukuna licks into your mouth with desperation you never would have expected. like your tongue is his salvation.

“pretty girl, y’know that?” he mumbles into your mouth. "gonna fuck you good."

the compliment pulls the sweetest little whine out of you, and sukuna grins against your lips like he's won a prize.

touching you isn’t what turns him on most, you realize. it’s not the feeling of your arms wrapped around his neck, or the incessant press of your clothed centers. it’s the reactions you give him. those tiny huffs of breath against his mouth that let him know you need him. how you lean in close and pepper kisses down his throat just so he won’t see you blush. it’s all pure magic to him.

you're nervous in the best way, slipping your hands under the thin fabric of his wifebeater to feel up his abs. something about him just melts your brain. his scent, how warm he is, how he kneads your body like dough.

most importantly, this sex stuff was a cakewalk so far.

"off?" you plead, pushing his shirt up and over his shoulders like its somehow offended you, and sukuna laughs, hard and heavy.

"what, can't wait?" you he’s only asking to see you writhe, cocky little grin on his face and everything. you nod, and sukuna laughs, running his thumb over your bottom lip.

you must be too honed in on his lower half, because you don’t realize he’s taken off his hat to undress until he fastens it backwards right onto your head.

“hold that for me.” he says, shucking his shirt off and to the side with a grunt.

you didn’t expect this whole ordeal to feel so intimate. for him to lay you down against his pillows and kneel. wearing his hat while you watch him strip down to his boxers, the party still raging downstairs.

sukuna looks so much different like this. softened around the edges by the messy pink fringe that falls right above his eyes. you think you quite like the way the tattoos under his eyes crease when he looks back at you and smiles.

you wonder how many girls have seen him like this. if any of them appreciated the way the moonlight peeking through the shades illuminates the black lines on his body the way you do. or how pink his lips are after he’s been kissed.

something inside tugs at you when he reaches forward to take his hat back.

“keep it off.” you sit up, slipping it off your head to toss it onto his nightstand.

he pauses, like his brain is still trying to register what you've just told him.

“but the hat stays on when i fuck.” sukuna fake pouts. “that’s like my whole thing.”

“leave it.” you urge. "you look nice with your hair down."

sukuna’s face softens the slightest bit. he almost looks embarrassed. like the compliment isn’t something he gets told often.

“don't make me blush” he teases, hugging your middle to bring you back down to the pillows with him.

your own shirt is next to go, chucked over his tattooed shoulder to reveal the soft swell of your breasts.

“fuck, where’ve you been hiding all this?” sukuna breathes. awestruck like he hadn't been staring at them all night.

his attention is completely addictive. the more sukuna touches you, the more you start to understand the droves of girl you see hanging off his arm every weekend. groveling for his acknowledgment in any capacity.

you’d do a whole lot more than grovel if it meant he’d keep massaging you through your bra like he is now. you‘be never wanted anyone quite this bad like you do now. mind, body, and soul.

your bottom layers go next, lost to the abyss that is his floor. sukuna takes a moment to turn your panties over in his hand.

"cute." he laughs.

you half expect him to throw them on the ground as well, maybe stuff them under his pillow or something. except, sukuna does neither. instead, the garment joins his hat on the nightstand. situated amongst his things like they've always belonged there.

you'd let him keep them if he asked.

that’s when the gravity of it all really sets in. you’re naked as the day you were born, laid up underneath the hottest guy you’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. and all he can do is look at you like you’re the most wonderful thing he’s ever seen.

sukuna whistles, low and slow, hand on your knee to part your legs.

“god, that’s a sight isn’t it. pretty down here too.” the bass in his voice practically makes your eyes flutter. that anxious feeling in your tummy slowly starts to dissipate as you spread yourself wider, morphing into something sappy nestled right at your entrance.

it’s almost humiliating feeling how wet you are, but sukuna doesn’t seem to mind at all, sauntering onto his stomach tongue-first like some sort of horny olympic diver.

his tongue hits you first, licking thick stripes from your hole to your clit. he parts you with a thumb on either side of your heat, not at all minding the way you pull at his locks.

sukuna was a lot of things. charming, outgoing, sometimes even vulgar. but one thing you’ve learned just in the last 10 minutes of lying atop his sheets is that he is anything but a selfish lover.

his fingers are a welcome intrusion. thicker than yours in a way that makes your head feel loose. the stretch only stings for a second, hotwiring the cogs in your lower stomach like a well oiled machine.

“fuck, you're tight. needy little thing.” he mumbles, pulling the digit out and bringing it to his mouth to suck your mess clean, then diving right back in.

it must kill him. hearing you, tasting you. wanting so badly to relieve himself but wanting to make you feel good even more.

he takes his time fingering you open, feeling up your slick walls until he finds that special little spot only the toys under your bed can reach.

you’re inconsolable, panting and groaning into the crook of your elbow while he rocks your entire world up, down, and sideways. you’ve never felt pleasure so blinding.

you go to say something, anything to let him know how fucking good he’s making you feel, but something else catches your eye instead.

the slightest movement of his hips, so quick you nearly miss it. then another, and another. his hips drive down, then back, pulling a shaky groan from the depths of his chest.

“are you humping the mattress?” you breathe.

a chuckle is all he gives you, nodding his head between your legs in a way that says “yeah, so what?” sukuna sucks your clit into his mouth for good measure, shoulders shaking at the near pornographic moan that escapes your lips.

"toji's room is right next door, you know. better keep it down." he laughs from between your legs.

right. the meathead you saw downstairs licking fireball off the floor on a dare. real classy guy.

you swat at him lightly when he comes up from your pussy, accepting the sticky kiss he presses to your lips.

he motions for you to sit up, and you do, following his lead. sukuna slinks in behind you, sitting up against his rickety headboard to shuck his boxers down with a huff.

“holy shit.”

you couldn’t have stopped yourself from reacting if you tried.

sukuna was thick. thicker than any toy under your bed or any of the half-chub losers you’ve fooled around with during the past four years here. long, flushed, and heavy. pre beading at his tip just aching to be licked off.

he shakes his head fondly at your lack of a filter, widening his legs so you can settle on your stomach between them. sukuna feeds you his cock with a loose grip at the base, throwing his head back with a groan as soon as your tongue meets his flesh.

you could very well get addicted to the taste of him. that salty tang that coats your taste buds and settles at the back of your throat.

five thick fingers sit at the base of your skull, gripping the back of your neck to guide you down as far as you can handle. it takes a couple tries, but you finally feel your nose rub up against the patch of pink hair at his base, earning a hearty groan from the man above you..

you’re not a pro at sucking dick by any means, but the sounds sukuna makes would have anyone thinking otherwise. long, gravelly moans. radiating right from within his chest and up to his ceiling.

"fuck, fuck hold on." he begs, letting his head fall forward with a shiver. you slowly ease his cock from your lips and look up at him expectantly.

sukuna squeezes the base of his dick with a huff. no doubt trying to starve off his orgasm. he looks up at you through his fringe with that same fangy smile you love.

“how do you want it?” he asks you, wiping the spit from the corner of your mouth.

right. the main course. full blown sex.

you suppose on your back would be best. comfortable, safe. you let him guide you back down onto the pillows and offer yourself up to him, feeling your stomach twist in on itself as he rolls a condom on and lines himself up with your entrance.

sukuna ruts his hips forward only slightly. not enough to breach but close enough for your fold to part around his tip.

"holy-"

you immediately lock up, joints stiff with adrenaline. the sensation is so foreign, thicker and hotter than anything you've ever felt.

“what?, don’t get shy on me now.” he drawls, tattoos straining against his lazy grin. “not after all that talk earlier.”

“waitwaitwait.” you hiss, pawing at his shoulder with a shaky hand. “oh my god—hold on.”

sukuna’s hips retreat, taking a bit of your anxiety with them. there’s a softness in his eyes, almost guilty in nature.

“you okay?"

you say nothing, trying to piece together the 3 words you probably should've uttered a long time ago.

“want me to eat you out a little more?”

“no, sorry, it’s not that.” you clarify, cutting him off at the last syllable. the way it comes out makes you cringe.

the room suddenly feels a lot smaller than it did before. sukuna searches your face for an answer, silently pleading with the furrow between his brows.

"i've never done this beofre."

you prepare to watch the expression on his face melt into something nasty. to maybe hear something laced with pity leave his lips before he tells you to get dressed and get out, but it doesn’t come.

instead, sukuna’s expression softens, red eyes melting around the edges as he looks down at your shivering, naked form.

“yeah?” the way he says it is so quiet, so cautious. not at all like the outspoken boy you thought you knew.

you nod, fingers curling around his bicep uncertainly.

sukuna reaches to take that same hand, pressing a fleeting kiss to the inside of your wrist. his gentleness almost feels unbecoming. so out of character compared to the stories you’ve heard each semester. but not at all unlike the charismatic guy you’d come to know tonight.

maybe you didn’t really know the real sukuna after all.

“do you..? or— i could teach you. or we could stop. i can walk you home.” his tongue flits over your wrist, soothing the hammering pulse point there.

you ponder his offer for a moment, eyes transfixed on the way he mouths at your delicate skin.

“you don’t think it’s weird?” you mumble.

sukuna presses his tongue against his teeth, voice dropping the slightest bit like he really shouldn’t be saying what comes out of his mouth next.

“I think i’m kinda into that stuff.” he admits, chuckling like it’ll somehow ease the awkward air. “kinda… maybe guessed downstairs that you were kinda shy? i donno. made me wanna talk to you.”

your eyebrows nearly touch your hairline at his confession, embarrassment flooding you from head to toe.

“you could tell?”

“i mean, i figured the silent girl from class probably wouldn't have too many nights under her belt.” he jokes, charming as ever. you don’t take any offense to it.

sukuna must sense the thoughts flying through your mind because he stops, taking your face in both of his tattooed hands in a way that sets your chest on fire.

“it’s whatever you want, okay?.” and the little smile he gives you is so devastatingly reassuring, that you all but make up your mind right then and there.

“i wanna keep going.” you whisper, leaning forward in a brazen display of confidence to seal your lips to his.

sukuna must be taken aback by your forwardness, because he doesn’t melt into the kiss immediately. instead, his hands trail over your hips, getting a proper grip on your body before he’s pressing you into the mattress and licking into your mouth.

he almost tastes better this way, like grenadine and the remnants of a cigarette. the party rages on below you, drowning out the little whimpers that escape your lips every time sukuna kneads the sensitive swell of your breasts with his rough hands.

he lets you get used to the stretch this time, easing his hips back and forth in little strokes to get you used to the motion.

it doesn’t feel great at first, being fucked open at the center by something large enough to rival the width of your wrist. but soon enough, the discomfort fades into something different.

something filthy, nestled right in the deepest pit of your center. blooming out and upwards until your whole body feels like its on fire.

“oh my god.” you whimper, realizing you’ve taken him to the hilt. you're so full that your chest starts to feel tight. like there isn't possibly enough room inside of you to fit all the pleasure building in your core.

sukuna’s must adore the noises you're making for him, because his cock twitches right against that little spot from earlier.

“yeah? want me to move?” he purrs.

never in a million years did you think he’d be this intimate. this gentle, coaxing you open with his dick as softly as he can muster, and loving every bit of it.

“pleasepleaseplease oh god.” you moan, grasping onto his shoulders to prepare yourself for the onslaught of sensations that hit you when he speeds up.

you’re so wet you can’t even feel the friction of his heavy cock against your walls anymore. just the smooth, effortless glide of his length and the occasional, devastatingly good, bump of his tip against your g-spot.

you could die happy like this, legs spread to accommodate every inch of his sculpted body, watching the sweat collect in the ridges between his abs. listening to him pant praises against your lips in between heated kisses.

"could fuck you for the rest of my life." he growls.

and if that wasn’t enough, the finishing blow follows.

“i only come to class to see you, baby. only show up to see that pretty face.”

a broken whimper of his name is all you’re able to force out before you’re sent plummeting over the edge.

you cum with a stifled whimper, arms wrapped around his neck like he’ll up and float away if you let go. the pressure between your legs is insane, peaking and crashing down like an array of fireworks.

sukuna follows almost immediately, pulling out to shoot his load over your mound and lower tummy with a string of expletives and praise.

you silently thank the powers that be for whatever odd stroke of fate that brought you two together tonight.

“feeling good?” he flops on his side next to you, head propped up on his hand while he tenderly looks over your body.

“feeling amazing.”

“mmm, hoped you’d say that.” he laughs. still high on adrenaline.

the room suddenly feels a lot larger than it did before. a lot louder too without the sounds of your shared pleasure muffling the party below. you wonder what you're supposed to do now that you've... sufficiently had your fun. should you ask for a towel? should you just redress and deal with it all later?

sukuna opens his mouth like he wants to say something, then snaps back to attention.

"shit.. towel." he mumbles, slinking off the mattress to toe around the moat of your shared belongings on the ground.

"here." he tosses you the tank top he'd been wearing earlier, flopping back down on the mattress with you. you stand to dab the mess from your body and toss the garment in his hamper before pulling your undergarments back on.

"do you w-" he starts

"i should g-"

sukuna lifts his head from the pillows, hand coming up to stroke over the back of your head.

"you first."

"do you want me to leave?"

"do you want to leave?" he asks.

"no."

"then don't." he states plainly, already sorting through the mess on the floor to pull on his boxers. humming a tune under his breath like its the most routine thing in the world.

in a way, you guess it is. for him at least. you couldn't figure out what to do right now even if you tried.

"you said you noticed i was shy in class?" it comes out more like a statement than a question.

"noticed a lot of things about you." he whispers. you feel your stomach jump. half anticipation half need.

"why only come up to me today?"

sukuna sighs, like the topic itself is something that’s weighing heavy on his mind.

"didn't think you'd give me the time of day." he almost sounds shy to admit it. "thought i might as well when I saw you in the kitchen. didn't wanna graduate without giving it a shot."

something in your chest unravels softly at that. you feel at ease now, more confident in your bearings.

"can we do this more? get to know each other better?" you don’t even know where the question comes from, never mind how you garner the confidence to ask it.

you see his brows raise just the slightest bit, crimson eyes widening.

“or. sorry- i know you have…” your mind flits back to the image of him practically drowning in female attention. you probably sounded ridiculous right now.

you gesture vaguely in front of you, trying to phrase what you’re about to say as respectfully as possible. sukuna pulls you closer.

“…other contenders.”

sukuna hums thoughtfully, like he’s already made his mind up.

"i'm sure they'd live without me.”

without him. like, in the complete absence of him. your mind finally registers what exactly he’s saying.

just you and him. this. more than just a one night stand.

you try to respond but quickly startle at the sound of three heavy raps against the door.

"is she gone? did you get her number?" a gravely voice asks, barely audible above the music.

“toji can you fuck off for like twenty more minutes?” sukuna’s not asking.

“god, fuck.” he groans softly, wiping both hands down the front of his face like it’ll somehow rid him of his humiliation.

you wait for the heavy footsteps at the door to retreat, and lean in to press a kiss to sukuna’s forehead.

“wanna get lunch tomorrow?”

shoko was going to die during your debrief tomorrow morning.

series taglist: closed